Phasis
by Omniflyer
Summary: Jade decided to call it "duplicosis phasis." Luke decided he was tired of having it, but didn't know how to go about getting rid of it. The whole group decided to come together one more time to save both the world and their friend.
1. Theoretical

_Spoilers ahead for the game in its entirety. Don't say you were unwarned! Tales of the Abyss and all characters, events, places and objects are not owned by me, but rather the geniuses at Namco-Bandai. I just enjoy taking their characters and placing them in tormented, painful situations and watching them escape._

_This first chapter (and... consequently, _story_, I suppose) is dedicated to the Griffinkhan, that awesome person whom we all love, beta-er extraordinaire and fellow Tales junkie. Merry Christmas, my friend!_

* * *

"...well, now." 

Luke visibly flinched. "I don't like it when you say that while looking at _me,_" he commented dryly. Jade just smiled. "And was the doctor costume really necessary?"

Jade was dressed up, head-to-toe, in his doctor uniform, and was giving Luke a thorough inspection. It had been a year and two months since Luke's attempted self-sacrifice at the Tower of Rem, or, if one would prefer, a little over a year since his disappearance when using the Key of Lorelei, or a month since he'd come back. Back then, they had all believed he was going to fade away, that the seventh fonons that comprised him were destabilising, somehow.

But he'd come back, somewhat miraculously, trudging across Tataroo Valley as though he knew exactly where to find Tear, like she was a beacon he could lock on to. He'd come back, tired, weary... but _solid_, yet, to Jade's acutely-trained senses, there still seemed to be a faint trace of seventh fonon dissipation. For some reason, Luke had survived for a year while his body was still releasing precious seventh fonons. There was, as the saying went, something very strange in Malkuth.

And so they found themselves in an examination room (which bore a startling resemblance to a fomicry laboratory, likely because it _was_), behind closed door, Luke stripped down to his boxers and Jade dressed up in the doctor's garb, poking him with any manner of instruments, the likes of which Luke knew neither their purpose nor their name.

"When one must think a certain way, one must dress the part," Jade answered slyly. "This, of course, explains Dist."

"Well, there's one explanation," Luke muttered lowly. Jade chose not to reply, instead focussed on suppressing an involuntary shudder.

"I'd advise you to be careful of what you remind me of while I perform these tests. If my hand gets too shaky, I'll have to send word to Daath for _Anise_ to come and finish them," he said, the edge of his mouth pulling up ever so slightly.

Luke jerked and lifted a sheet over his torso. "I don't trust her alone in a room with a half-naked me!"

"Well, that's all right. I think she's given up on marrying rich, anyway," Jade commented, picking up an instrument that looked too much like a cattle prod for Luke's liking.

"She doesn't _need _to marry rich," Luke said, to distract himself from Jade's tinkering. "She's a Fon Master, now, she's making plenty as it is."

"Oh, I think she'd still want to marry rich, really," Jade said, pointing out that, "Knowing her, as a Fon Master, she'd not want to marry anyone below her status."

"Yeah, well, whatever..." Luke trailed off, obviously wanting to leave thoughts of the girl behind until he had some decent clothes on. "Anyway, what's the prognosis, doc?"

"Well, it's an interesting situation," Jade conceded, "but I'm not quite sure how to fix it, yet."

"What do you mean, 'fix it,' Jade?" Luke asked, narrowed eyes inquisitive. "I feel fine... what's wrong with me?"

Jade sighed. "Well, if you'll recall before your little disappearing act a year ago, you were suffering from _duplicosis phasis_."

Luke whistled lowly. "Wow. You even gave my condition a fancy name in my absence. I'm almost flattered, Jade."

"Don't be. It's not a pleasant condition," he said gravely. "If you'll recall, the seventh fonons in your body which make up your being were slowly separating and dissipating."

"Right," Luke confirmed. "The end result was that I was fading out of being, right? My body was going to just... dissipate into nothing."

"Correct," the Colonel-Doc said. "As we progressed toward the final showdown with Van, you were no doubt already feeling less solid."

Luke held a hand against his stomach. He remembered the almost... _liquidy _feeling his body had in those lead-up days. "And so?"

"Well, with your body losing seventh fonons, and us having no time to stop it, the only way to keep you alive indefinitely was to somehow find a way to inject your body with more seventh fonons," Jade said, in the tone of voice that said I-really-don't-want-to-be-explaining-this-right-now.

"But..." Luke said slowly. "The seventh fonons that I was injected with weren't mine..." Jade sighed and opened his mouth, but Luke interrupted him with a realization. "...but... fonons of a similar type are attracted to each other... and so by injecting me with seventh fonons, it restored the make-up of my body... and even drew some of my own, original fonons back to me?"

"Correct again," Jade said, obviously pleased he had less explaining to do. "You were given a gift, of sorts. Your contact with Lorelei as you released it into the fon belt was like being given a massive influx of seventh fonons. Basically, you were granted time."

"I see..." Luke muttered. "I did feel a lot better after that..."

"But that's not the end of the _duplicosis phasis, _I'm afraid," Jade sighed. "All that did was increase your reserve seventh fonon supply. It has done nothing to cure your condition."

"So you mean–"

"Exactly," Jade said, in a rare display of cutting someone off to explain something. "Your condition still exists, and you are still fading out of existence. We just have more time to find an answer."

"We?" Luke asked through furrowed brow. "You're going to help me, Jade?"

"Well, I suppose I at least owe you that much," he muttered. "After all, if I let you die, now, Anise would have my head... or perhaps I should say, 'Tear,'" he ribbed with a knowing smile. Luke blushed furiously, but hid it as he turned around to being getting dressed again.

"Oh, don't get dressed, yet," Jade said, and Luke paused to look at him. "I'd still like to outfit you with a fonon monitor."

"Oh," Luke replied. "Is it like the armband you gave Tear when you were watching for miasma at the passage rings?"

"Well, kind of," Jade said. "Instead of watching for an addition of miasma, this watches for a decrease of seventh fonons."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Luke said. "Here," he offered, holding his left arm out for Jade.

"Oh, not like that," Jade said smoothly. "The other difference is that this one is a suppositor–" Luke was out the door and down the hall before the word was out of Jade's mouth. Jade smirked. "They just make it so easy sometimes..."

* * *

Luke miraculously managed to dress himself fully by the time he'd gotten away from the fomicry wing, despite his lack of attention and ridiculous pace. Jade had persuaded Peony to add a wing to the Malkuth military headquarters for the development of fomicry, this time with more noble intentions than Jade had previously lent himself to. For now, the noble intentions seemed to start leaning away from "noble development" and more toward "helping Luke." Luke didn't have as much of a problem with this as he thought he would. 

He wandered from the headquarters through the streets of Grand Chokmah. Noelle had graciously agreed to fly him there from Sheridan in the Albiore, and Luke wasn't foolish enough to decline. Sailing by ship from Baticul to the capital of Malkuth took a week; Noelle could get him there in half a day.

Since he was in the neighbourhood, he decided it would be a good opportunity to make an unannounced visit to Guy. The swordsman had taken up a nobleman's residence in Grand Chokmah as the last of the noble family of Hod, and, due to his efforts in stopping Van, was granted a high social status by Peony. Nobleman Guy Cecil (or perhaps Gailardia Galan Gardios): official walker and groomer of the Emperor's rappigs.

Well, someone had to do it.

Luke toyed with the idea of knocking as he walked up the path to Guy's mansion. On the one hand, he didn't want to just show up and then announce his presence... he wanted to surprise Guy! On the other hand, he might accidentally walk into something he'd rather not that might completely bowl him over. But then... if he _could _sneak in, he'd really bowl Guy over by just showing up!

While he was deliberating in the front yard, he was bowled over by five rappigs and a trailing Guy. "Sorry...!" Luke hit the ground, torso and head buried in shrubbery. Guy handed the running rappigs to a servant and came back to Luke. "Sorry, sir, I didn't see you there at all. The rappigs are crazy when they–" (and here he stopped for a moment because Luke had an arm held outward behind him, inviting Guy to help him out of the bush) "Oh, yes, of course! I didn't... _Luke!_" he exclaimed at finally seeing his old friend's face.

"Guy!" he cried back. "What was _that?_"

"_Those _were Peony's rappigs," Guy explained. "You remember, the ones we searched for in the castle?"

"You're watching Peony's rappigs? He's let them out of his sight?!" Luke asked incredulously.

"Yeah. I thought the mansion was going to be for me, but I think it's for them and I get the guest room," Guy quipped. "Come on, I'll show you around."

Luke and Guy killed off the afternoon, talking and exploring the mansion. They even managed to sneak in a practice swordfight in the backyard late afternoon. It ended up as a draw: the practice swords broke when Luke's Swallow Fury ran into Guy's Moonlight Tempest. Guy showed Luke around his basement, and Luke was lost about half a minute after Guy launched into an explanation of all the fontech he had strewn about.

Dinner was interrupted by Jade's arrival at the mansion. He strode into the dining hall with not the posture of a soldier addressing a noble, but with the hands-in-pockets casual stance of a friend meeting another.

"Jade!" Guy greeted him. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to find Luke, actually," the colonel replied, dressed in his normal military attire, looking over the redhead as though scanning him. Luke was halfway to a standing position to greet him, but chose to sit down quickly.

"What did you want to see me for?" he asked warily, as though prepared for Jade to make some sudden movement toward him.

"Oh, nothing in particular," he replied. "I just wanted to let you know that I've gotten a leave of absence from Peony so you and I can more focus on your condition."

Guy's eyebrow shot up. "Condition?"

"Nothing too serious!" Luke said hastily. "You don't have to worr–"

"Shut up, Luke," Guy said, winking to let him know he wasn't serious. "If it's got Jade interested enough that he wants to take time off to deal with it, something _must _be happening. What's going on, Jade?"

"I don't suppose I could ask you to explain, could I, Guy?" the colonel quipped.

"...how the hell would I do that?"

"Luke's _duplicosis phasis_– that is, the condition whereby his seventh fonons have been fading from his body– never went away. It's still slowly deteriorating his body, even with the Key of Lorelei on his back," Jade said.

"What does the Key have to do with anything?" Luke wondered aloud.

"Well, the Key is made from the Sword and Jewel of Lorelei," Guy reasoned. "Each of those is made heavily from seventh fonons, themselves. In that case, the Key must be a massive concentration of seventh fonons."

Jade smiled, "That's correct. In such a case, having such a concentration nearby should serve to keep the seventh fonons near Luke and hold him together."

"But no such luck, huh?" Luke sighed, leaning back in his chair and running his hands back through his hair. "Man, it's just one thing after another... but at least nothing catastrophically bad happens if we mess up this time."

"Don't say that!" Guy admonished him. "If we mess up, you die. Don't you think that's 'catastrophically bad' for Tear?" Luke stayed silent, but gave him a warm smile as a response.

"Speaking of which, where is Tear? I wouldn't have thought she'd leave you alone since you finally returned," Jade smirked.

Luke narrowed his eyes at him, wondering if it was a jab or not, but finally decided to answer with a simple, "She's in Yulia City. Teodoro needed her for some reason or another. I forgot."

Guy rubbed his temples. "I'm starting to think your being a replica had nothing to do with your not knowing parts of Asch's parts."

Jade nodded assent. "Indeed. Perhaps a perfect-isofon replica just has reduced capabilities to store new information."

"...you can stop making fun of me, now..." Luke muttered.

"Well, regardless," Jade went on, "we'll have to determine our first step into curing Luke of this _duplicosis phasis_ once and for all. I think our best bet might be to contact Spinoza."

"Is that really our best option?" Guy asked.

"I know he's not our favourite person, but he is a peerless physicist," Jade pointed out.

"...only because he let his peers die," Guy muttered darkly.

"We've already decided to trust him, once," Luke sighed. "We may as well give him the benefit of the doubt again."

"If you say so," Guy relented. "You do know I'm coming with you, right?"

"Guy... are you sure?" Luke asked.

"Of course I am, you idiot," he smiled. "I don't even want to think what you would let Jade get up to without me around."

Jade feigned surprise. "Why, Guy. Surely you don't think such a fragile, elderly man such as myself could cause anyone any trouble?"

"I'm not even going to answer that..."

* * *

Guy became visibly more excited as they neared the port. He seemed bored while he was leaving instructions to his servants as to how to care for the rappigs, but now that he was getting away from the mansion, there was an almost palpable excitement that began to overtake him. Luke noticed, but said nothing. Jade, of course, used the opportunity to poke fun at him. 

"Guy, if you don't calm down, I'm going to have to drag you to the women's bath to freeze you into submission," he said calmly.

"How can I help it?! The closer we get to the port, the more hopeful I get that Luke brought the Albiore here!"

"Oh, is that all?" Luke asked. "I _did _bring the Albiore here. Noelle's inside."

Jade raised an eyebrow. "My, my, Luke. Did you leave her inside the Albiore all day?"

"No, I think she went shopping for most of the day, actually," Luke replied. "She should be back by now, though."

Jade made a disapproving sound, though they both knew he was joking. "Shameful. It seems like Tear hasn't taught you how to treat a lady, yet."

Luke looked confused. "Should she have?"

Guy sighed. "Let's stop the conversation there before you get yourself into any irreparable trouble."

"No, I'm rather enjoying this!" Jade smiled.

Luke trembled. "Why does it always scare me when you smile?" Jade opened his mouth to reply, but Luke cut him off, saying, "Rhetorical."

The three of them boarded the Albiore, and Noelle greeted them with her usual smile. "Welcome back, Luke. Nice to see you, Colonel. ...hello, Guy!"

"Good evening, Noelle," Jade greeted her. "I hope we're not too much trouble for you, again," he said.

"That's a switch," Guy muttered under his breath to Luke. "Isn't he usually the one who causes trouble in the first place?"

"I heard that, Guy," Jade said sweetly. They shivered.

* * *

The Albiore sped across the night sky, soaring in the direction of Belkend. Spinoza was there, Jade had told them. He was doing research into new power sources. With the end of the Planet Storm, Belkend researchers had worked toward providing new power sources, and their results were quite promising. Nothing truly _global_ was finalized, yet, but many cities were already working on advanced steam power. Spinoza, as a leading physicist, was working there. 

Guy had asked Luke if he'd wanted to stop in Yulia City and pick up Tear, first, but Luke replied that there was "no need to worry her, again."

"But don't you _want _to see her?" Guy asked. Luke didn't answer, and instead turned to look out at the sea through the Albiore's window, pensive.

* * *

Noelle got them to Belkend swiftly, but it was still close to midnight by the time they'd arrived. Jade directed them to the inn, saying it would be better to search for Spinoza in the morning. 

"I doubt he'd be awake at this time of night, anyway," Jade offered. "We elderly scientist types rarely stay up until all hours of the night."

"You mean elderly scientist types like him," Luke grinned. "You're more the crazy scientist type."

"Perhaps," Jade said, a mysterious glare flaring over his glasses. "But then again, the difference between elderly and eccentricity is often just craziness."

"And money," Guy shrugged.

"Speaking of which, I think it's your turn to pay for the inn, Jade," Luke said as it came into sight.

"Why, Luke," Jade said, pretending to look astonished. "You have all that money of the fon Fabre family at your command, and you're going to make a lowly, poor soldier pay for your luxurious stay?"

"Oh, shut up," Luke grimaced. "Fine, I'll pay." He walked inside and started speaking to the attendant.

"How _do _you do that so easily?" Guy asked while he and Jade were still at the door.

"It's kind of frightening, really," Noelle added.

"Why, thank you," Jade replied before walking in. "That's the nicest compliment I've gotten all day."

Luke finished paying and gave Noelle a separate key, then walked into the room to be shared by he, Guy and Jade. The two followed him, locking the door behind them.

"Man..." Luke sighed, dropping his shirt on the dresser. "It somehow feels like the days are getting longer."

"Actually, now that we've lowered the Outer Lands, the relative rotational speed of the planet would be _faster_, so the days should feel shorter," Jade commented, his pure logic seeping out again.

"Okay, okay, I didn't need that much information this late at night," Luke withdrew, detaching his sword from his belt and slipping something out from his pocket.

"What's that you've got there, Luke?" Guy asked, staring at it intently.

"Oh, this?" he blinked. "I'm not totally sure. When I was done at Eldrant and descending with Lorelei floating around me, some of the ambient fonons kinds of... merged into this." He held out the item for Guy to examine, a round, pocket-sized sphere, shining a deep hue between gold and white. The colours swirled and coalesced, twisted and broke apart within the sphere, and Guy was nearly mesmerized just watching it. "Since I haven't got a better name for it, I called it the Orb of Lorelei."

"You know, we attribute way too many things to Lorelei," Guy joked. "Sooner or later we're going to lose track." Luke closed his fist around the Orb, then took it and the Key of Lorelei and placed them on the dresser beside his shirt, dropping his item bag right beside it.

As he moved nearer to the bed, Jade began to feel something. It was slight, but he was gifted enough with sensing ambient fonons through his fon slots to tell: something had just changed. Something about _Luke _had just changed.

...it felt like...


	2. Window of Opportunity?

Jade didn't sleep right away that night. As soon as he was sure the other two were out, he went over to the Orb of Lorelei and began to observe it. It gave off a faint light in the darkness, as well as a somewhat calming aura.

Luke had held the Orb in gloved hand, and so Jade made sure his gloves were on when he touched the sphere. He lifted it up, and rolled it in his palm for one or two rotations; so lost in thought was he that he didn't count. He looked over at Luke, sleeping peacefully on the bed, and strolled over to him, taking the Orb as he went. Slowly, he crept, step-by-step, all the while monitoring the rate at which the seventh fonons were dissipating in Luke's body; or rather, taking note of the difference in the dissipation rate as the Orb neared him, then as it went farther away, then back again. He crept back and forth several times, testing the speed of dissipation the whole while. When he was done, he simply murmured the word, "Interesting," under his breath, mind working in overlimit.

He set the Orb back down on the dresser. His next experiment was risky, he knew, but... it had to be done. He removed his left glove and touched the Orb of Lorelei. An expected feeling came over him: the feeling of the fonons in his body being absorbed. The first through sixth fonons were slowly drained from him into the sphere; when he stopped touching it, the feeling stopped.

Jade then focussed the fifth fonon into his hand, feeling it warm slightly as the fonons of fire gathered. He touched his gloveless hand to the Orb, and felt as the concentrated fonons were then drawn into the Orb. The Orb turned a brilliant sanguine, apparently now filled with fifth fonons. Jade smirked. "I see," he whispered. "Very interesting, indeed..." Covering his tracks, he proceeded to generate the first through sixth fonons, minus the fifth, and, one-by-one, placed them into the Orb of Lorelei. It returned to its original golden-white shade, just as he had predicted it would. He returned it to its original place on the dresser, and then crawled into bed. Analysis could wait for the morning's light.

* * *

Luke woke up in the morning feeling utterly refreshed. Usually the others would have already woken up and been waiting outside for him, but today Jade hadn't left early, taking instead a little extra time in the room to read. Luke awoke to discover him sitting atop a neatly folded bed, reading patiently. 

"Isn't it a little early for literature?" Luke yawned, blinking the morning light from his eyes.

"Oh, it's never too early for literature, Luke," Jade smiled in reply, red eyes not slowing down in the slightest. "However, it is apparently much later than we'd planned to get a start to the day at. If you could, would you mind grabbing your things so we could get out of here?"

"Not even a chance to comb my hair, huh?" he mumbled.

"Well, from the looks of things, you cut your hair again quite recently– a month ago, I'd say– and it's not quite at the point where combing it is a requirement so much as a luxury," Jade reasoned. "Now, let's get going."

"Yeah, yeah," Luke mumbled. "You can be a real pain, you know that?"

"Assuredly," Jade replied, watching Luke walk to the dresser. Focussed entirely on his fon slots, he observed as Luke recollected his shirt, item bag, Key and– most importantly– Orb of Lorelei. Once he was dressed and equipped and with the Orb back safely in his pocket, his fonon dissipation rate picked up again to the level it was at before he went to bed the night before. It wasn't enough of a difference to matter, considering how little distance had actually changed between he and his belonging, but...

"Jade," Luke said, looking back at the colonel from the doorway. "I thought you wanted to go."

"My apologies," Jade said automatically. "I was distracted by something."

"What's that?" Luke wondered, head tilted slightly.

"Never mind, it's not important right now," the other said, pushing his hair back and fixing his glasses more closely to his face. "Let's be off while the offing is good."

Jade strolled from the room while Luke paused a moment to puzzle through the word "offing."

* * *

Spinoza was observing the work of a few other scientists in the research facility. The trio (Noelle had left to standby in the Albiore) walked in to see him smiling slightly at his team, doubtlessly content with their efforts. 

"Ah, Luke!" Spinoza said. "It's good to see you. Jade and Guy, too."

"I'm afraid we're not here for pleasantries, Spinoza," Jade said, pushing his glasses farther up his nose (one would think that by now he would have just fixed the glasses to his nose with a fonic arte, but he found it relaxing to fiddle with the meddlesome device). "I'd like to speak to you about something."

Spinoza narrowed his eyes. "It must be serious if you're coming all this way to speak to me."

"Indeed," Jade confirmed. "If I may, I'd like to speak to you in private, however."

"Hey, now that's not fair, Jade!" Guy frowned. "This is about Luke, why can't he be in on this?"

"I'd rather not throw around worrisome explanations until I have more of a basis for fact in them," Jade replied. "We won't be long, and if I'm right, we can talk more."

"Well, whatever," Luke sighed. "Just make it quick, okay?"

"One more thing," Jade added. He held his hand out. "If you don't mind, I'd like for us to take the Orb of Lorelei with us."

Luke frowned. "This thing? Why?" He slipped it out of his pocket, handing it to Jade, who took it carefully in his glove.

"Oh, no reason in particular," Jade said. "Now, let's talk, Spinoza." The latter gave a quick nod of his head and the two of them stalked off to a corner of the lab. Jade walked away with the Orb into another room… then a second room farther away, tracing the dissipation rate as he went.

It didn't change.

The farther Jade went from Luke with the Orb, the more the dissipation rate _didn't _change. Jade was puzzled, but filed it away for a moment while he and Spinoza walked. The important detail right now was to figure out _why_ the dissipation was happening, not what was causing the rate change.

"Here we are," Spinoza said, leading Jade in. "Let's talk…"

"Yes, let's."

* * *

"Why are we following them again?" Guy asked as they followed Jade, room-by-room. 

"Because I wanna hear what they're saying," Luke smirked, creeping quietly. "If it were about you, wouldn't you want to hear what they were saying?"

"Well, yeah," Guy admitted. "But I didn't expect to see you going after them so actively."

"Really?" Luke blinked. "Why not?"

Guy fiddled with the hilt of his sword. "Well, you were always so… unconfident. Seeing you actually taking initiative for something that just affects you is kind of surprising."

Luke smiled a little, looking down at the ground as though seeing his own memories projected on his scratched surface. "It's Asch…" he finally mumbled. Guy didn't say anything, hoping that Luke would elaborate on his own, but, as Luke remained in pensive silence, Guy found that he didn't _need _Luke to say anything. He'd managed to figure out what Luke had meant, unsaid, just through his own understanding of his friend.

They'd stood there in the adjoining room to Jade's for a full five minutes before Guy finally said, "We should get back so Jade doesn't catch us snooping around. Come on, man."

"Yeah… you're right, Guy," Luke relented. "Let's go." He shifted his sword on his back into a more comfortable position and the two of them walked back to the southern door, went through, and closed it tight.

As soon as the door was closed, Jade and Spinoza came through the northern door of the room, unknowingly following Luke and Guy's path, step by step. Jade wasn't able to determine Luke's position through his fon slots, but he could still sense the rate of dissipation.

_I've moved rooms away from Luke… then gone back… but the rate hasn't changed at all, even though the Orb has moved with me._ He sighed. _Perhaps I'm wrong… maybe the Orb of Lorelei isn't related to this problem at all…_

"What's wrong, Jade?" Spinoza asked.

"It's nothing," Jade said.

Guy and Luke were settled back into the first room where they'd met Spinoza when he and Jade returned, Jade perplexed (though not visibly) and Spinoza mostly silent. Guy started to ask Jade what he'd been discussing, but Jade pre-empted him, saying that he knew nothing, handing the Orb of Lorelei back to Luke, who pocketed it again. Guy naturally didn't believe him, but Luke trusted that if Jade said he knew nothing about a serious enough condition, he really meant it.

Luke was entirely too trusting for his own good. Perhaps literally.

The three men parted ways with Spinoza, making the short walk back to the entrance, the halls where they travelled littered with sound.

"I don't believe you know nothing, Jade," Guy said for the tenth time. "This is serious."

"As am I," the colonel responded, voice nearing exasperation. "I simply don't have a reasonable basis to make _any _kind of hypothesis."

"We're not looking for a _reasonable basis_," Guy shot back. "We're looking for _guesswork_."

"If we act on guesswork, we'll end up farther from the solution than we are now," Jade replied sagely. "Luke's taken my response in stride, I would advise you to do the same."

"How can you stay so calm when talking about something like this?" Guy muttered.

"I try," Jade said as he opened the door to the outside, "to constantly remain on guard to I'm not taken aback. If you prefer, I like to be constantly on my feet so— _augh!_" he cried, as a dark-haired torpedo blew in from the open door, oblivious to his presence and took him down to the ground.

"Owww… watch where you're standing, you basta— _Colonel!_" she cried, nearly choking him in a tackle-turned-hug.

"Anise?!" Luke cried in shock, voicing the words Jade couldn't due to a lack of ability to breathe.

"Luke, too?!" she gasped. "And _Guy!_"

The latter _promptly_ slipped behind Luke. "Hey, Anise. How are you?"

The girl leaped up into the air and landed beside Luke, clinging to his arm and giggling. "Oh, were you worried about loveable little me, Luke?" Jade coughed slightly, hiding a deep intake of breath.

"Not especially," he quipped. "I know you can take care of yourself."

"Oh, booo," Anise grumbled. "Don't you know how to be polite to a lady?"

"Too bad there's no _lady_ present," Guy mumbled under his breath. Anise kicked his shin.

"Well, it's nice to see you're been keeping well," Jade commented, getting back to his feet while Guy hopped on one of his, hands clutching his leg.

"Yup! I'm as great as ev—"

"Indeed," Jade smiled. "You haven't lost any stuffing and your stitches are as tight as ever."

Anise nearly hit him with the doll on her back. "_Hey!_ You're supposed to be talking to _me!_"

"My apologies," Jade said, inclining his head ever so slightly. "What am I supposed to be talking to you _about?_" he grinned.

The girl looked back up at him with slightly widened eyes. "Why... about me, of course!"

"I see," the colonel went on. "Well, do forgive me, Anise, but I usually refrain from talking about the _small _topics of the day."

"I'm still growing!"

"I should hope so," the colonel ribbed, "or else you'll never be able to look Guy in the eye as you scare him." Both Anise and Guy took exception to this and began to make their grievances known, but Jade's slow stroll toward the opened door informed them that he wasn't prepared to listen to them, or at least that he was entirely apathetic to their complaints.

"Where are you going?" Luke asked, watching his departure.

"To the inn," Jade replied calmly, returning his hands to their normal overcoat lair. "We old folks need rest to assuage the pain in our aching joints."

"…Jade, you're moving faster than all of us…" Guy said, sighing.

* * *

The group arrived in the inn, Anise trailing on the heels of all of them, obviously torn between fulfilling what she'd come to do and following her dear friends (and, perhaps, soft touch for cash— hey, she may have become a fon master, but that doesn't mean she had to stop chasing money!). In the end, of course, the potential infinite wisdom of Jade won out. 

"So," Luke asked once they were all settled down in the lobby of the inn, "why'd you came here, anyway, Anise?"

Anise confided, "We received word in Daath that large quantities of fifth fonons have been gathering in Mount Zaleho. It's practically unheard of," the Fon Master said, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Larger than what was already there?" Luke gaped, remembering their last visit when the group nearly collapsed from the heat and nearly everyone accused Jade of possessing an air-conditioned suit.

"Well, if that's the case, what are you doing in Belkend?" Guy wondered aloud, leaning against the inn's wall casually.

"I was hoping Spinoza would have some idea about what to do about excess fonons," Anise replied. "And thanks to you three, I haven't even gone to see him, yet," she berated herself, holding her head in both hands.

"There's no need," Jade said. "I think I know just the thing to take care of excess fonons in an area." The others stared at him for a moment.

Guy smiled a little. Luke might have been right: sometimes, it seemed like Jade really _did _have all the answers. "And what do you have up your sleeve, Jade?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll figure it out sooner or later, Guy," Jade said. "We'll have to go to Mount Zaleho to take care of it, of course, but that's not a terribly huge problem, and if we're really lucky, it might even solve our other problem," he added, with an extended look at Luke.

"Other problem?" Anise blinked, tracing Jade's eyes over to Luke. "What's wrong?"

"Guy, please explain."

"Why is it always me?!"

* * *

Noelle flew them back to Daath Bay that night. The explanation had only taken a few minutes and they'd had plenty of time to The abnormal amount of fifth fonons rising from Mt. Zaleho made the surrounding airspace hazardous to fly through; it was rife with heated updrafts that would bob the poor Albiore like a landship in water (the Tartarus notwithstanding, of course). Anise led the group back to Daath, but they travelled at a slow pace due to the heat. The entire island felt flooded with a blanket of humidity. Even walking up the steps to the cathedral was painful. 

They finally returned to the hidden fonic glyph that lead to Mount Zaleho, and Jade stopped them before they proceeded any further.

"Luke," he commented. "I'll need the Orb of Lorelei before we proceed any further."

As Luke pulled it out of his pocket, Anise pulled near and stared into it, saying in awe, "This is the thing you got from Lorelei? It's beautiful..."

"I'm not entirely certain I got it _from _Lorelei," Luke corrected her, "but I certainly did get it from Lorelei's ambient energies. It just might not have been purposeful."

"Either way, you could probably sell it for a lot of gald!" Anise piped up, all notice of the heat fading away as she started thinking about the potential profit to be made.

Jade took the Orb from Luke's hand. "Just like we could sell Tokunaga as well, hmm?"

"Booo! You're mean, Colonel!" Anise said crossly, sticking his tongue out at him.

"Not at all," he replied, gathering the fifth fonon in his own ungloved hand, "just realistic."

"Jade, what are you doing?" Guy asked, watching his progress.

Jade sighed, knowing an explanation was imminent. "I'm placing some traces of the fifth fonon in the Orb of Lorelei."

"Why would you do that?" Luke asked. "If I were you, I'd be saving all of my strength for dealing with the head inside Mount Zaleho…"

Jade rearranged the glasses on his face. "I can only surmise that the Orb is acting as a kind of vacuum, absorbing like fonons to what is most contained inside it."

Guy whistled lowly. "Clever, Jade. So by inserting fonons of fire into the Orb..."

"The Orb will absorb the excess fifth fonons in Mount Zaleho!" Anise squeaked in delight. "Oh, Colonel, you're so clever!"

"Well, we're not home free, yet," Jade admonished them. "The Orb is still drawing fonons from Luke, as well. It seems that nothing prevents it from drawing in the seventh fonon." He finished inserting fonons, and the Orb glowed the same crimson it had the night before. Almost instantly, it began to feel much cooler.

"So bringing the Orb will protect us from the heat?" Luke guessed.

"Yeah," Guy confirmed. "We just need to find the biggest clusters of the fifth fonon and absorb them, and everything should go back to normal."

"I'm afraid not, Guy," Jade sighed, pushing his glasses up yet again. "You see, with this high a concentration of fonons, there won't be separate patches of it."

"Like fonons attract," Anise reminded herself. "Which means all of the bunches of fonons are going to come together in one spot."

"But... wait," Luke realized. "When enough fonons of a single type come together, don't they become sentient?"

"Yeah," Guy said, folding his arms across his chest. "Lorelei was the sentience of the seventh fonon."

"So that means... we're going to come across the sentience of the fifth fonon, then?" Luke blinked, piecing everything together.

"It is more than likely," Jade admitted, "that we'll run into Efreet: a being of pure flame, who commands the magma around where we'll be."

"That's no good!" Luke cried. "It could wipe us out with one sweep of its arm!"

Jade shook his head. "I don't think we'll have to worry about that. Remember, the sentient fonons are historically very friendly to humans. I believe if we explain the situation to it, it will cooperate with us easily. Then we can just absorb the ambient sources of the fifth fonon quickly."

"Ambient sources?" Anise asked. "But what about the sentient being, itself?"

"Efreet will feel some drain, but be mostly able to go right through the Orb's field," Guy translated,  
"which means that if we're going to absorb it, it's going to have to _let _itself be absorbed."

"Precisely," Jade smiled. "Or we convince it to ascend into the fon belt, where it can exist harmlessly."

"So either way, we have to get it out of there, right?" Anise chimed in.

Jade chuckled. "Exactly," he said, ruffling her hair a little. Luke was waiting for her scathing comeback, but it strangely never came.

"Well, I guess that's it, then," Luke sighed. "Let's get this over with!"

"Luke," Guy said sternly, "don't overexert yourself. Let Jade and I handle most of this."

"I'll be fine," he replied, brushing off Guy's concern. "Don't worry about me."

"You'd better be," Anise shrugged. "Tear would kill us if we let anything happen to you!" Luke blanched and looked away.

"Don't even look away," Guy said, laughing at his reaction. "You know she's right!"

"As fun as it is to tease Luke, we should be going," Jade intervened, for which Luke decided to thank him in private later. "Please make sure everyone stays within about twenty meters of the Orb."

"Twenty meters is all the room we have, huh?" Guy mumbled. "That doesn't seem like a terrible lot..."

"It's the best we can do, now come on!" Anise pushed him into the glyph. "We have to go, go, go!"

"Just stop touching me!"


	3. Fon Master Anise

_AN: Thanks to the watchful eye of a wonderful betaer, it was brought to my attention that Abyss fonon sentiences are inherently friendly, and so the last bit of "Window of Opportunity?" didn't make sense with the group preparing for battle. So, that's been corrected, and I thought I'd note that here for you who didn't catch it. The last chapter was tweaked slightly and this chapter follows that. Sorry for the slip-up; I hate making dumb errors, and that was a doozy. Regardless, this chapter finally gets into something I've been dying to insert here for a while: action! Thanks again to the lovely Griffinkhan for her continued beta work through this chapter..._

* * *

It was hot. Very, very hot. 

And Jade _still _didn't look uncomfortable.

"Okay, seriously," Luke squirmed in the heat, "these air-conditioned Malkuth suits? We're getting uncle to start research into making them."

"Daath too," Anise sighed. "Even in the Orb's protective field, it's still boiling here…"

"Just think of it as a nice vacation spot," Jade hummed, holding the orb and leading them on.

"Sorry, I don't remember reading about _this _in my list of vacation spots," Guy muttered, already beginning to sweat profusely.

"Didn't you say that you never really read about vacation spots?" Luke panted, arching an eyebrow in his former servant's direction.

Jade chuckled. "That's probably why he doesn't remember reading about it," he smiled, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Less talking, more walking," Anise muttered. "The sooner we get out of this hellhole, the better."

The group had, of course, materialized on the far side of the cathedral teleport glyph, landing in Mount Zaleho atop a stone formation. The heat was bad here, but each of them silently knew that to go further down would mean to increase the heat.

"Let's get this over with quickly," Luke said, shoulders hunched slightly through the heat. "Try to avoid as many battles as possible, assuming any monsters are alive in this heat. We don't have anyone who can heal with us, it's just too risky."

Anise bristled. "What do you mean, '_we don't have anyone who can heal?_' I can use Resurrection, remember?"

"Yeah, I'll pass on waiting until after I get knocked unconscious to be healed, thanks," Luke shot back sarcastically. Anise was going to counter, but Guy cut her off with a barely audible agreement, and she decided to choose her battles and argue later.

Jade decided to take a different angle on Luke's comments. "Actually, Luke, it's extremely likely that there will be some monsters roaming around, here. The creatures that lived here were already heavily influenced by the fifth fonon, and so an influx of them might actually serve to make them even stronger."

Luke nearly fell over. "You're joking, right?"

"I wish," Guy muttered darkly. "Unfortunately, it's very likely that he's right."

Anise sighed. "Everything in here was tough enough the first time around with the_ annoying_ heat. But in this_ stifling _heat?" She ran a hand through her right ponytail. "Ugh… it's all so dry and bad... I hate it here!" she shrieked, and in the process, summoned a trio of flame bats to their location.

"Watch out, incoming!" Jade cried in warning, and Guy's sword was already out and prepared in his hand before the last words had flown from Jade's lips.

"I'm on it," he called back, dashing in quickly.

The first bat swung in a high arc, beating its wings quickly, then dropped down on Luke, who parried and knocked it aside with the flat of his blade, as it was easier to catch like that. He followed with a mighty leap toward it, ducking low and left under its scratching claws, then following with a strong lateral slash across its torso, which knocked it out of the air. Anise cried a word of warning, already mounted on Tokunaga, and Luke spun in time to see a second bat bearing down on him, claws out, tiny mouth open, large flames ignited on its wings, swooping, lowering, diving, attacking, being knocked out of the air by a sudden Energy Blast.

"Thanks, Jade!" Luke called over his shoulder, preparing to sink the Key deep into the third flame bat.

"Watch it, Luke!" Guy called, and the former rolled quickly and leaped up, having narrowly missed a swoop from the first flame bat that had come after him.

"That thing's still moving?" Anise gasped in astonishment. "But Luke got a direct hit at it!"

"It's the extra fifth fonons, it's strengthening them!" Jade called, informative as always. He felt the need to remove both hands from his pocket (to this point, only one had been taken out to cast Energy Blast) for the coming scrap. "Be on your guard!"

The bats began spiraling around Anise and Guy in circles, hovering menacingly and waiting for their chance to swing in for damage. Anise swung out with Tokunaga's outstretched arms, but even the massive doll didn't have the range to hit the aerial monsters.

"Keep them distracted, I'll cast," Jade called, and began gathering fonons of water. Unfortunately, the fourth fonons were hard to find in the fifth-fonon-dominated mountain, and so it took a little longer than usual.

Luke backed into Anise and Guy, and formed a three-teammate back-to-back-to-back circle, focused heavily on defense. "Any ideas?" he asked, watching all three bats now spiraling out of their reach. One threw a fireball at them, and Luke and Guy had to duck to get out of the way.

"Don't get hit by those?" Guy offered lamely.

"Gee, thanks, it's great to have you with us," Luke muttered to him. Anise giggled, but got cut off by a bat's divebomb. She caught it with Tokunaga's "hands" and threw it to the ground, stomping on it several times.

"You..." she cried, stressing each jump with a word for good measure, "things... are... really... really... annoying! _Eagle Dive!_" This was followed by the familiar sounds of a bat squealing out in pain and the squelching noise of a being's internal organs suddenly becoming external.

Guy blanched. "Remind me never to make her angry again."

Luke blinked. "You're just realizing this _now?_"

Any further conversation was immediately interrupted by a pair of twin fireballs. Guy ducked the first one just as he had before, and Luke put the Key of Lorelei up in front of him, repelling the fireball to a safer trajectory. Off in the near distance, Luke thought he heard the words, "O violent torrent," but wasn't sure until Jade cried, "Splash!" and large, powerful streams of water materialized in the air and threw the flame bats to the ground.

"Now!" Luke cried. "They're down, come on, Gu—" But before they could move, Anise had dashed between them and made it to the bats in record time.

"Out of the way!" she screamed on her way to the enemies. "These things are mine! _Dual Punishment!_" A whirling Tokunaga made quick work of the downed bats, his extended claws tearing into the soft, now doused flesh of the flame bats, both of which crumpled, lifeless, against the stone ground.

"Well done, Anise," Jade said, walking up to the trio from his vantage spellcasting point at the safest distance the Orb could handle from the rest of the group. "Make sure you congratulate Luke and Guy for getting in your way, hmm?"

"We weren't in the way!" Luke cried.

"Well, you weren't standing aside," the colonel smiled at him, but they all knew better at this point than to take him seriously.

"Hey, Anise... are you all right?" Luke asked, ignoring Jade completely. "You seemed a little..."

"Irate?" Guy supplied.

"Sure, that one," Luke agreed.

"I'm fine!" she snapped suddenly. "It's just hot and sticky and I really don't want to be here!"

"And this heat it messing with _her _city, too," Guy said to Luke with a wink.

"Damn right!" Anise chirped. "Now let's get going!"

"Lead on," Luke sighed.

* * *

It had been half an hour in the dreadful heat when Luke finally started to get as exasperated as Anise. He wasn't making his displeasure as _vocal _as the tiny girl, but it was by no means unnoticeable, either. His movements were becoming more erratic, sloppy, and worrisome. Guy, of course, interpreted this as being related to the _duplicosis phasis._

"Luke," Guy said, after noticing that the movements were continual and not isolated to one or two missteps. "I think you should go back."

Luke nearly lost a step in confusion. "What are you talking about? I'm not going anywhere."

"Luke, you're stumbling, you're losing focus... if we get into another battle, I'm worried you're not going to be able to stay focused on the fight," Guy explained.

"That might be true," Jade said, "but if we come up against a more difficult fight, we'll need his help, Guy."

"Yeah," Anise piped in. "Besides, we're _all _getting tired... having a fourth person around is just another person who can look out for the rest of us."

"Also, to send Luke back would mean to send him through the areas we've just come through _alone_," Jade reminded him. "That's not something I think he's capable of doing right now."

Guy sighed. "All right, fine. Just be careful, Luke," he admonished.

"I'll be fine," Luke said, throwing him a smile to reinforce his statement. "Worry about yourself first, Guy."

"Don't worry!" Anise said. "If Luke gets into that much trouble, I'll have Tokunaga carry him out!" Jade laughed and smiled at the little girl, and the group continued onward.

They approached the platform where they'd fought the Fyr Broncover a year ago. Luke remembered the battle well. If it weren't for a precisely timed Force Field from Tear, he would have died, but her protection was, as always, impeccable. Now, of course, she wasn't here...

And part of him was happy for that.

A sudden rumbling shaked him out of his reverie. The platform... no, the _mountain _was shaking! Some of the magma began sloshing up dangerously against the edges of the stone, in some places even going to far as to cover the top edges of it.

"Something's happening!" Luke cried out, somewhat redundantly.

"Thanks a lot, Luke, I wouldn't have guessed without you!" Anise cried, then fell over from the tremors. "Ow...! I _really _hate this place!" Jade helped her to her feet, then began searching the area for a cause.

Guy found it before he did. "Above us! Fifth fonons!"

He was entirely right. A massive collection of fifth fonons was gathering over their heads, so many that they were _visible _in their purest form. For a moment, Jade was worried that it would spew flame all over them, but his fears were calmed when the fonons collected and coalesced together, rather than falling down.

"I don't think we have to worry!" Jade shouted over the rumble to the rest of the group. "I think it's Efreet!"

Luke's eye caught a particularly large swell of magma slosh up against the side of the rock. "He's particularly friendly!"

A deep tenor voice boomed out, stilling the magma as it spoke. "_Resound... The Will of Flame, open the way..._" The echoes of the sentence faded away against the walls, chiseled by time and pressure, and it appeared. Efreet hovered above them, brilliantly glowing red skin, massively muscular torso which trailed off into not legs, but a flickering trail of fire and an aura of undeniable power.

"Is that...?" Luke trailed.

"Efreet," Anise gasped. "It really is..."

Efreed looked down at them as though indifferent to them. "You who carry the Bane of Existance, what do you come to me for?" They looked among themselves, confused. They each briefly made eye contact with each other, as though silently asking which of them was carrying the "Bane of Existence," but none of them knew what it meant. Or, at least, Jade wasn't willing to say, yet.

Anise stood tall. "O mighty being of flame, pure light of passion and lord of fire! I am Fon Master Anise of the Order of Lorelei! I ask of you, why are you here, endangering the people of the Order and of Daath?"

"This is not my choice," Efreet replied, and Jade caught a slight tone in its voice that said "I don't need to explain myself to a fifteen-year-old girl."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Human, it is nothing that need concern you," Efreet replied. "This place shall become a suitable home for me, now that my last is inhospitable."

Luke exchanged glances with Guy. "Didn't it dwell in the fon belt before this?" Guy nodded. "What could have happened to the fon belt...?"

Anise, to her credit, stood her ground against the embodiment of fire. "Efreet... with all due respect, you can't stay here! You're endangering the people who live around here! Your power makes this place inhospitable!"

"I cannot leave!" Efreet burst, and the magma around them began to churn again. "There is no going back... my home shall be _this _or _death_."

"I don't understand...!" Anise cried back. "You have to tell us more! We can help you!"

"No one who carries the Bane of Existence shall help me!" Efreet argued. "That alone makes you a threat!"

"I still don't understand!!" Anise screamed, her anger starting to rise. "You're not making sense!"

"I do not need to justify myself to you, human!" Efreet boomed, his rage beginning to show in the magma around them. "If you wish me to leave, you shall have to _force me to do so!_"

"Anise..." Luke said.

The girl was visibly disturbed, and looked halfway between exploding with anger and bursting into tears. "It's.. I can't... I don't want to drag you into a fight with a... a _sentience!_" she stumbled through the sentence, looking back at her comrades. "This is madness... this is _death_."

Jade, unexpectedly, walked over and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing slightly. "None of us would be here if we didn't think it was doable, Anise. We're still standing here. Now, decide."

Anise's lip trembled slightly. "But what if I make the wrong decision...?"

"Even wrong decisions can have right endings," Jade answered. "Surely you've learned that much from our travels."

"_Enough!_" Efreet thundered from above. "No more of this pretentious idealism! Not coming from you, who carry death! _Flame Lance!_" Efreet's hand summoned a large amount of energy, it created an enormous blast of fiery energy that shot forward toward Jade and Anise. The girl was too stunned and confused to react, but Jade was ever the soldier. He pushed her out of the way before it connected. Anise rolled to a stop on the ground, getting up and seeing only the aftermath of a large explosion of fifth fonons through teary eyes.

"Colonel!!" she screamed, paralyzed with fright. As the fonons dissipated, Anise was shocked to see a large amount of severely scorched stone jutting up from the ground. Then the stone lowered into the ground, revealing a none-the-worse-for-the-wear Jade behind it, standing calmly.

"Are you all right, Anise?" he asked, relaxed.

Guy whistled lowly, and muttered to Luke, "Did he find time to raise a Stalagmite to block that attack?"

"At some point between when he pushed Anise out of the way and the attack hit him, yeah," Luke confirmed. "That's the fastest casting I've ever seen..."

"Colonel..." Anise started, ready to say something, but Jade wouldn't hear it.

"Stay focused on the enemy! We'll have to fight our way through this, now!" he warned them, and Luke and Guy already had their blades in hand as Anise enlarged Tokunaga.

"You," rumbled Efreet, arms raised and magma below sloshing violently, "dare to come against _me, _the commander of noble flame's roar?!"

"We're not doing it because we _want_ to!" Luke cried. "But if we _have_ to…"

"Then we're not backing down!" Guy finished, swinging his sword in a high arc. "_Demon Fang!_" The shockwave traveled up through the air, arcing toward Efreet. The manifestation dodged it low, and came storming in on Luke, who side-stepped in and swung out with the Key. Efreet created a dense shield of fifth fonons and flew away, bearing down on Anise with haste.

Efreet summoned fonons again, and outstretched a hand toward the Fon Master, calling, "Raging Blas—"

Anise used Tokunaga's heavy fist to catch Efreet's wrist on the inside and bat it away, sending the Raging Blast over her shoulder harmlessly. "That's… enough! _Shadow Raid!_" She swung in, already starting inside Efreet's guard and delivered a nasty combination of punches, at one point gutting Efreet and ripping the doll's mighty arm out. Efreet groaned loudly, but did not falter. Tokunaga's arms were singed from the contact.

"Begone from me," Efreet howled after the attack ceased. "_Goring Hell!_" it screamed, and created a wellspring of flame beneath Anise. It was only the fact that she was cushioned by Tokunaga that saved her, and protected her from the secondary burst of flame which knocked her away. She screamed as she flew backwards.

"Anise!" Luke cried, the look of concern on his face only rivaled by the momentary fear that flickered over Jade's.

Then, of course, Jade was back to being all-business. He crossed his arm along his body and said, "Luke, Guy, you know what to do."

"Right," Guy confirmed. "Luke, watch out and try not to get hit. Remember, we have no healer."

"I know, I know!" Luke called back. "Watch yourself, too!"

"Fools… there is no protection from me!" Efreet boasted. "Come! Feel—"

"…the hammer of light! _Limited!_" Anise interjected, and a large pillar of light descended from the heavens and tore clear through Efreet. The being looked disoriented for a moment, and sunk lower, as though finding itself unable to maintain its height.

"Now, Luke!" Guy called.

"I'm on it!" Luke cried, running in and letting loose a series of slashes with the Key, first laterally, then horizontally up, sending Efreet reeling backward into Guy. The Sigmund-specialist launched his own attack from behind, sending it back forward into Luke's line of fire, who cried, "_Light Spear Cannon!_" The Key sent waves of light fonons through Efreet's body, but it wasn't enough to shatter whatever was tethering it to a physical form.

Efreet backhanded Luke suddenly, sending him sprawling along the ground and leaving severe burn marks across his torso. Then it threw balls of fire at Guy, two of which connected with him squarely and caused him to kneel over in pain.

"Luke…! Guy!" Anise cried to them, but short of being a healer, there was little she could do for them without wasting time rustling in the item bag for a gel, and time was of short supply with Efreet now back on his metaphorical feet and rushing her. She parried two powerful flaming punches with Tokunaga's arms, and led into a powerful uppercut when she spun in under its guard, crying, "_Dragon Surge!_" as she went.

She spun during the uppercut, though, perhaps because she hadn't stopped from the spin she used to get in under Efreet's guard. When the attack was done, she was entirely vulnerable, facing away from it, falling, Efreet above her and looking down menacingly. There was no Tokunaga between them to protect her. She thought, somewhere in the distance, over the roar of Efreet behind her, that she could hear the colonel, his voice almost melodious, saying, "Arise, O violent waters, to rout mine enemies!" but it was probably just her imagination.

She hit the ground and tried to dive out of the way of the attack she knew was coming, and felt a little shocked when no attack was forthcoming. Then she heard Jade cry, "Blessed Drops!" and watched the familiar water bubble bombs arise and explode around Efreet, causing the being to howl in pain.

She was safe. Jade had seen to that.

Efreet, however, was anything but safe. It was writhing in pain, struggling to breathe and looking as though it was experiencing difficulty just in holding itself together.

"Now, Anise!" Jade called to her over the raging magma, "Absorb the fonons around it and it won't be able to maintain a physical form!"

"How?!" Anise called back.

"Use the Orb!" Luke cried across the battlefield, and Jade threw Anise the Orb. She held it up to the being, who immediately screamed in rage and pain.

"Sorry, Efreet," Anise taunted him, "but it looks like you've finally _burned out._"

"This would have been perfectly tolerable without the puns, thank you," Guy quipped.

"I," Efreet screamed as the Orb turned sanguine and it felt its grip on a physical form waning, "will not go down… without dragging you to a fiery abyss!"

"Look out!!" Jade screamed. "It's gathering every fonon it can get! Anise, _move!_"

The girl refused to budge. "I can do this! I can… I can stop him!"

"_Anise!_"

"_Come, final reckoning!_" Efreet screamed through dying breath. "_Word of Annihilation!_"

For a moment, it seemed like the world itself froze (an abstract term, at best, when describing the heat of the battle). Anise was mere feet away from Efreet, and Jade, Luke and Guy were all standing at the edge of the safe radius the Orb could emit. The Orb was glowing red, filling with fifth fonons. Jade was already in motion, running toward Anise, as if trying to prevent what was about to happen.

And above them all, everything Efreet could muster from his final attack came together and dropped at them: a massive meteor of pure fifth-fonons, hotter than anything known to man. Destruction incarnate.

And in the middle of it, Anise, riding a doll, with a staff in one hand and the Orb in the other, screaming the words that would mean life or death for all of them: "_I… will not lose!_" And leaning Tokunaga back, enraged, she swung upwards. "_Final Fury!_" Tokunaga's fist ran into the energy at the same time as Anise raised the Orb upwards, sapping the Word of its energy. For a moment, the power leaned back and forth, and no one was quite sure what would happen.

Then came the finisher.

Tokunaga's other arm, swinging in, _through _the Word, miraculously not burnt at all, coming right at Efreet's body. "Bastard…! _Let's finish this!_" And with a sound like the Albiore's engine exploding, Efreet vanished, no longer having enough fonons to maintain its form.

Anise shrunk Tokunaga down, and collapsed on the stone floor. Jade picked her up, and carried her toward the exit. Luke and Guy looked to see if she was okay, but the only answer they needed was to see her face, eyes closed and grin wide, nestled into Jade's chest.

"She'll be fine," Jade said, smiling at her proudly. "And yes," he said, as though answering her unsaid statement, "I think you _did _grow a little…"

* * *

It was quiet, peaceful and, above all, _cool_ that evening at the inn. It was around midnight, Luke and Guy were already asleep, and Anise had been passed out in a bed for the entirety of the day following the fight against Efreet. There were many questions Jade still wanted answered (what Efreet meant by the "Bane of Existence," why it couldn't return safely to the fon belt…), but for the night, it was enough that Anise was safe. 

Speaking of which, it was about time to check up on her. He'd been making hourly visits all day, and he supposed one more before he retired for the night wouldn't hurt. He crept up the stairs to her room, unlocked it, and crept in silently.

Anise was still under the covers, but they looked more disorganized than the last time he'd been in. She must have been tossing a little in her sleep. Tokunaga was sitting placidly on the bedside table, a little scorched, but still perfectly functional.

He drew near to the bed, and sat down on the side, looking her over. She didn't appear hurt, and as he studied her, he knew she would awake in the morning, none the worse for wear. More than that, he was _proud _of her. She had done what might have been tantamount to the _impossible _on that day: counter the final arte of a fonon sentience.

Jade smiled, a little sadly. She might have been forced to grow up too quickly, this one… she was still so little, but that was probably more a physical problem than anything. She was so frail, but so full of life…

He raised a hand, and brushed hair from her closed eyes. She was in deep sleep, unresponsive and calm. Jade lifted the covers up over her again, making sure to lift it over her shoulders and around the curve of her back as she slept in a fetal position. She sighed contentedly.

He stroked her hair for a while, and a faint smile grew on her face. She was still asleep, but seemed so much more happy. Something in her dreams, Jade supposed, had just taken a major upturn.

Jade yawned. It was getting late… perhaps it _was _time to retire. Anise, after all, was going to be fine through the night. He began to rise, his hand raising, fingertips lifting off of her hair…

Anise's hand darted forward like a shot, holding Jade back. His head whipped back to look at her, but she hadn't woken up. It was a purely subconscious gesture. She drew his hand closer and held onto it like she was a younger child holding Tokunaga in her sleep, close to her chest, nuzzling into it with her head.

To say Jade was astonished would have been short of the mark. He was rarely emotionally moved, but the young girl always raised his oft-ignored paternal side, somehow. Anise snuggled into his hand, and, in her sleep, softly, as though from a dream, mumbled one single word:

"…papa…"

Anise would not know, in the morning, how she came to be in her bed, snuggled against Tokunaga, nor would she notice the faint remnants of tear stains that adorned her blanket. But they were there, shed from love and joy, tinged with a slight bit of regret that it may never be, in truth.

But for a brief moment, it was, and that was more than enough.


	4. The Light, the Dark, the Orb

It wasn't a particularly nice way to start the day. She had grown... not _fond of_, but particularly _accustomed to _light reigning in Yulia City. After so much time with the fonglass dome over the city allowing sparkling sunlight to bathe the town in the light of the world, having unnatural darkness spreading everywhere was, at the very least, _unnerving._

But Tear Grants, descendant of Yulia and beholder of the Grand Fonic Hymn, was never one to let emotions show, particularly uneasiness. This situation wouldn't make her lose control.

...but it was still exceptionally strange.

It started slowly, almost unnoticeably, at first. But slowly, over time, it became impossible to ignore. First fonons, the fonon of darkness, began appearing around the base of Yulia City's glass dome. No one could see it, but the most gifted of fonists in the area, Tear included, began to _sense _it, feeling it as though the new fonons were deep resonances, felt within their own bodies. ...Technically, they _were _deep resonances felt within their bodies, but this is by and large beyond the point.

The point was that as time passed, the fonons began to grow in number, and what started as an invisible lining that bordered Yulia City's dome was becoming more and more visible and creeping higher and higher. Already it had grown up the dome beyond the three-quarters mark, leaving sunlight to illuminate only the most central areas of the city, blocked out by remarkably _visible _fonons. The fonons took on a dark purple tone, but from the inside, in the areas where the sunlight could no longer reach, it looked closer to black than anything, even with fonstone lighting.

Tear was very puzzled. She could feel the fonons as they grew (she was the first to sense them, of course) from seeming nothingness into blanketing totality, but could do nothing to stop its savage growth. She tried everything from applying opposite vibrations through her melodies to drawing the fonons into her body and using them to cast spells. The opposite vibration strategy failed miserably (nothing happened beyond the growing fonic wall shimmering for half a second), and the spellcasting strategy was similarly flawed; for some reason, when she finished casting Nightmare, the fonons from her attack dissipated and were drawn back into the fonic wall, likely due to the like-fonon-attraction principle. Whatever way you wanted to look at it, it was still a difficult situation: not necessarily _bad_, but far from acceptable It was almost as though some entity greater than Tear was commanding fonons to gather in Yulia City, and rejecting all attempts to remove them.

Tear didn't like the idea of a "greater entity." Encounters with "greater entities" rarely ended well (as meetings with dragons, behemoths and the like were so willing to remind her...). At least, those meetings rarely ended well for the _lesser entity._ The greater entity was more than content to carry on as though nothing of import had happened, kind of like the pause one takes in the morning when the jam lid doesn't open while making toast. That was a mortal, the jam lid.

Or, in a worst-case scenario, the _jam_.

* * *

Anise was comfortably seated in her office (formerly Ion's) when Luke, Jade and Guy entered. "Oh, you're finally awake, Luke?" she quipped, not missing a beat. 

"I wasn't asleep for that long," Luke replied, stifling a yawn and rubbing his eyes, drifting slowly to a chair.

"Right, right," Guy smiled, leaning back against the wall of Anise's office. "You do realize that Anise has been working for about two or three hours already, right?"

Luke's eyes snapped open. "So long? It's barely past morning!"

"Indeed," Jade mumbled. "And though I hate to side with Luke, Anise, I believe I told you to take it easy this morning." The girl avoided his gaze. "When you left the inn, you told me you were just going for a walk, not going off to overwork yourself."

She frowned at him. "Boo! I'm not _overworking _myself. This is just routine delegation."

Jade skimmed the papers from afar. "Don't you think you should do some of this work, yourself, rather than delegate _all _of it?"

"Nope!" the cheerful Fon Master replied, her trademarked cute face back in place. "After all, I won't be able to do it when I'm travelling with you three."

"Anise...?" Luke blinked. "You're not seriously..."

"Of course I am!" she cried suddenly. "Until the colonel figures out what's wrong with you, Luke, you'll need as much help as you can get to stay healthy. And that's where cute, adorable Fon Master Anise Tatlin comes in!"

"Are you sure, Anise? The cathedral might fall into disarray without you," Guy warned, but she shook her head quickly, her dark pigtails flying in loose arcs around her head.

"That's what I did all this work this morning for, dummy!" she explained, sticking her tongue out for a moment. "Everything will be fine, here, especially now that the matter with Efreet has been resolved." Then, at length, she added, "Thanks again for your help with that, colonel."

Jade gave a slight bow. "Don't even mention it, Fon Master," he said, which sent Anise into another of her delusions of grandeur, the trouble being that they weren't really _delusions_, any longer. She _was,_ after all, the Fon Master.

"Hey, did we do nothing?" Guy ribbed, exchanging glances at Luke.

"Apparently not," Luke laughed, "but I guess that's why we're bringing Anise along. That way we don't have to do any of the work."

"Indeed," Jade said. "From this point on, Anise, when we get into battle, you'll be doing all of the fighting, yourself. We old folks don't need to pressure our aching bones, any longer."

"Hey! That's not fair! Boo!"

"Well, if you get into trouble, I suppose we could lend you a tiny helping hand once in a while," Jade sighed, "but I'm afraid not all of us have Tokunagas to fall back on."

Anise blinked. "But colonel, you never fall."

Jade just laughed.

* * *

Tear rubbed her temples. She had a headache coming, and she knew it, and it was only a fine line from there to a migrane. It was funny... she'd lived for years in Yulia City, with darkness reigning overhead, an eerie purple mist enveloping the city's dome at all times of day and poisonous clouds far overhead... and yet the darkness always calmed her, reminding her of the selenias that bloomed and flourished in the darkness. They were easily her favourite flower, and she had come to appreciate the darkness for indirectly producing them. 

But now, the darkness was something else... she still appreciated it, but this time, it didn't feel the same. Perhaps she had grown accustomed to the light, but the darkness was no longer a soothing comfort for her, as it grew around Yulia City. Then again, perhaps she was just dreading the long meeting she had to go to. Teodoro had specificially asked for her presence, which meant she was going to be required to go somewhere, solve something or sing.

Not like she hadn't done enough of that.

And so Tear found herself strolling slowly into Yulia City's main square, up the fontech ramp, through the fontech door (it was actually quite remarkable how little attention she paid to ancient fontech, these days; Guy nearly had a breakdown every time they _neared the dome_) into the mayor's office. Her grandfather was standing near the back window, facing her, talking to someone who was standing out of sight behind the head chair. Tear walked toward them, rounded the corner of the table and...

"Tear!" Natalia exclaimed, bounding from behind the chair and enveloping the melodist in a hug. "It's been too long."

"Natalia?" Tear questioned, trying very poorly to hide her puzzled expression. "What are you doing here? I thought you were en route to Grand Chokmah..."

"I _was_," the princess replied, "but I received some rather discomforting news regarding Baticul, and returned home immediately."

Tear blinked. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the fonons piled high up the window, blocking out the light. What could possibly be discomforting when faced with _this?_ "What kind of trouble has occured in Baticul?"

"Actually, it's similar to what's happening here," Natalia confessed. "Sixth fonons are gathering in the city. It started with the outskirts, but now it's all gathering near the castle."

Tear stroked her chin thoughtfully. "That is rather bad... That many light fonons could blind a person, when gathered all together like that."

"Precisely," Teodoro confirmed. "Natalia has told us that the city is slowly grinding to a standstill, blinded by the light." There was a momentary pause, as though someone had said something that no one else could _quite _understand, and then they moved on.

"So what would you like us to do about it, Natalia?" Tear asked.

"I'm not sure, now," she replied. Natalia shifted her quiver, her posture remaining perfect. "It's a little disorienting, to be honest with you. I was hoping you would have some ideas, Tear, because you're the closest person to Baticul I could think of that's an expert on fonons. Could your hymns not do anything?"

"The hymns haven't had much of an effect on the fonons gathering around here," Tear replied sadly, "but I guess we could always try them back in Baticul... I wouldn't expect it to do anything, though."

"Could you at least try?" Natalia asked, keeping the pleading tone out of her voice, though just barely. "I feel like we have to do something."

"All right," the melodist relented, smiling slightly. "We'll give it a try. If nothing works, we'll take a trip to Grand Chokmah and see if Jade has any ideas. He's better with the six fonons than I am."

"Tear... thank you," Baticul's princess said as genuinely as Tear had ever heard her speak. "I won't forget this."

"It's okay, really," Tear responded, a little taken aback by Natalia's sudden rush of emotion, but, upon reflection, she realized that it really was to be expected. The princess was always more animated when matters concerned her people, and her subjects in Baticul, having once already risen up in defense of her, must have been especially meaningful to her.

Teodoro offered a Yulia City Charter to them, to get them back to Baticul quicker, so they accepted it and set off for the appropriately-named City of Light. The craft was significantly faster than the craft Natalia had taken to Yulia City but, of course, was nothing compared to the speed of the Albiore II.

* * *

That same Albiore, by the way, was soaring over water en route to Baticul. 

"Okay," Guy said, once Noelle was settled into piloting and the other four (well, five, as Anise counted Tokunaga) were settled into a sitting position in the rear of the Albiore's cockpit. "Time to be brought up to speed. Jade, I _know_ you know more than you're letting on."

"My, my," Jade sighed, his hands stretched out to his sides, "have I made it so obvious?"

Anise chirped cutely, "No, we just know that you _always _know more than you let on." The colonel laughed, but didn't say anything until Guy prompted him.

"So," Guy prompted him, "First things first. We know that Luke's slowly fading out of existence. Why?"

Jade furrowed his brow. "What we _know _is that seventh fonons are dissipating from his body. What we _don't _know is why. However, I have a hunch."

"I thought 'guesswork will only bring us further from the truth,' or something, Jade," Luke joked.

"Guessworks and hunches are hardly inclusive of each other," the soldier stiffened. "So far, from what I can tell, seventh fonons are being drawn from Luke's body and inserted into the Orb of Lorelei."

"The Orb?" Luke blinked. "That's the source of this?"

"I don't know that for sure," Jade replied. "But it doesn't appear to be helping. I don't believe the Orb is actively draining you of fonons, though."

"Huh?" Anise blinked. "You mean... the Orb isn't responsible for Luke _losing _the fonons, but it _takes _the fonons when they go?"

"Something like that," Guy reasoned. "So, in that case, getting rid of the Orb wouldn't solve our problems, any."

"Precisely," Jade confirmed. "Moreover, I think the Orb will end up being the way to _save_ Luke, as well."

Luke took the Orb of Lorelei out of his pocket and turned it over and over, starting into it. It was still glowing crimson from their encounter with Efreet, the sanguine tinge spinning and twisting, appearing both tangible and ethereal at once, if that was possible. He gave the Orb to Jade, who studied it.

"I've performed my own experiments with the Orb, and so far I think my reasoning is solid," Jade explained. "When the Orb is taken away from Luke and then brought closer to him..."

_Slowly, he crept, step-by-step, all the while monitoring the rate at which the seventh fonons were dissipating in Luke's body; or rather, taking note of the difference in the dissipation rate as the Orb neared him, then as it went farther away, then back again._

"...the rate of dissipation _doesn't change _at all. The dissipation rate remains the same regardless of whether or not the Orb is near him or not."

"Which is how you reasoned that the Orb isn't actively draining him," Guy said.

"Yes," the colonel confirmed, "but that's not all. The Orb, as we've seen, is predominantly made of seventh fonons, but it also has the capacity to store other fonons. Actually, it has a capacity to store a _massive _amount of other fonons."

Anise muttered, "So it's a fonon container, which is why it's still holding the fifth fonons."

"Right," Luke said, "that makes sense."

"As we all know," Jade went on, "the seventh fonon is special in that it has the ability to destroy and recreate matter at a fonic level. This is the basic theory behind hyperresonance." He held the Orb up a little higher, letting them all look at it, as though hoping _it _would explain things in his stead. "But this little device is truly a wonder. When an equal number of the first through sixth fonons are inserted into it..."

_...he proceeded to generate the first through sixth fonons, minus the fifth, and, one-by-one, placed them into the Orb of Lorelei. It returned to its original golden-white shade, just as he had predicted it would._

"The Orb converts all of the fonons inside it into the seventh fonon. While a hyperresonance changes matter at the fonic level, this Orb of Lorelei changes the fonons, themselves."

"Whoa," Anise gasped. "That's ridiculous."

"Unbelieveable," Guy confirmed.

"I still don't understand how that's going to save me," Luke blinked, the fonic impossibilities of Jade's statement entirely lost to him.

"Simply put," Jade explained, "if we could gather into the Orb an amount of fonons of each other type equal to the amount of fifth fonons that are already in it, the Orb would become a source of seventh fonons even greater than yourself."

"But wouldn't that just start draining me?" Luke asked.

"Ah, but remember, when Lorelei sent you the Jewel, you absorbed it into your body accidentally. All we have to do is make this a massive enough collection of seventh fonons, make you absorb it like you did the Jewel, and the Orb will then _draw _your fonons together, preventing you from dissipating any more," Jade explained.

"Hey, that makes sense," Guy whistled. "Good thinking, Jade."

"Don't sound surprised," Anise admonished him. "This is the colonel we're talking about! He can do anything."

Jade chuckled, then commented, "Anything except fill the Orb with the proper level of fonons. I simply don't have the ability to gather that many fonons in the Orb by myself, or with others."

"What are you saying?" Luke blinked. "That we have a solution, but no way to put it into practice?"

"Effectively," Jade sighed. "There's just no way for a human to match the fonon output of a sentience, and we need that level to match what's already in the Orb."

Silence reigned over the group for a minute, each of them lost in thought, Luke perhaps most of all. Surely there was a way...

"At any rate, there's little point in dwelling on it, now," Jade said, snapping them all out of their reverie. "When we get to Baticul, Guy can explain to Luke's parents what's happening, and we'll think of a plan from there."

"Why is it always me?!"

Jade smiled as he stood up and left the room without another word, still amused by how easy his comrades made it, sometimes. The moment he went through the door, however, his mind began working in overlimit, again. Even though so much had been cleared up... there were still...

_The first through sixth fonons were slowly drained from him into the sphere; when he stopped touching it, the feeling stopped._

If the Orb were doing no draining of Luke's seventh fonons on its own... then why did he feel that temporary drain? And... if distance meant nothing, then...

_Luke closed his fist around the Orb, then... placed it on the dresser... As he moved nearer to the bed, Jade began to feel something. It was slight, but he was gifted enough with sensing ambient fonons through his fon slots to tell: something had just changed. Something about Luke had just changed. ...it felt like..._

...perhaps he was operating on guesswork, after all.

* * *

It was around two in the morning when they finally arrived at Baticul. Everyone but Noelle, for obvious reasons, was asleep in the Albiore's tiny cabins, but Luke stirred as the Albiore slowed down, groggily watching Guy and Anise get up, and looking around to see Jade, already standing at the window. Luke was sure that it wasn't much past midnight (he was entirely more tired than he usually was upon waking up in the morning), but sunlight was streaming in through the cabin. The Albiore was still in flight, stationary in the airspace around Baticul, so Luke knew they didn't have to leave, yet, but he had a nagging feeling that something had just taken a turn for the worst. Noelle rarely idled the Albiore in mid-air. 

"Jade..." the replica mumbled groggily as he stumbled to his feet, "It's not... how early is it?"

Jade spoke through his hand, raised to his face and holding his chin, "It's the middle of the night, Luke."

Anise rubbed her eyes, and asked through a yawn from the other side of the partition that separated the cabin, "Can you cool the fonstones, then, colonel...?" And promptly fell into another yawn and leaned back on Tokunaga as she finished her request.

"It's not a fonstone, Anise," the colonel replied, just as muffled. "At least, I don't see how it could be..."

Guy raised himself out of bed and walked over to the window. A shocked expression came over his face. "That's not possible..." The curiosity finally became too much for Luke, and he rolled out of his bed, walking over to the window, blinking his eyes furiously to drown out the light. Then he realized that the light wouldn't be drowned out: he was staring right at it.

Baticul was _shining._


	5. Light Shine Down

"This is too early... hold on," Anise muttered, rubbing her eyes with undersized hands. She yawned slowly, then started running a comb through her loose hair before looking for ties to keep it out of her eyes. When she was finished, she stretched and emphatically said, "Okay, _now _I'm ready to go."

"Okay, then," Jade muttered, fixing his glasses a little more carefully, "this is going to be an interesting little excursion." He replaced them on his head, and slipped his hands comfortably into their pockets.

"Kidding aside, Jade..." Luke sighed. "Baticul's lit up like a fonstone and all you can say is that it will be an 'interesting little excursion?'"

"Undoubtably, I _could _go on for a while longer, but I'd doubt you'd listen through the whole thing."

Now Guy leaned against the window, looking down at the shining city. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as though hoping each stroke would bring an idea forth from his mind to his mouth. "Do you think it's possible that the same thing that happened at Mount Zaleho with fifth fonons are happening here with sixth fonons?"

"All the signs are certainly similar," Jade conceded, frowning slightly as he looked over the city. "While fifths fonons made the surrounding area impossibly hot, sixth fonons are making Baticul impossibly bright."

Guy managed to keep a more-or-less straight face, but Luke's betrayed emotions stirring in his heart. "But that's... Mother..."

"Ah, don't worry," Guy reassured him, putting a hand on his shoulder, "I'm sure the nobles and the royal family were removed from the city before it got this bad." It was difficult to read Luke's expression; the city was casting an unnatural light (and unnatural shadows) across his visage.

"Well, whatever," the young noble sighed. "Let's just get in there and see what we can do."

"I don't see how..." Anise trailed, obviously deep in thought. "The second we got close to whatever's causing all that, we'd be blinded."

Luke growled lowly. "We have to do _something_."

"Luke, no one's arguing that," Jade sighed, knowing he'd have to waste valuable thinking time calming Luke down. "We just have to think of a safe way to enter. Running in at this point would be foolhardy, if not suicidal."

"Come on, it's just a bunch of fonons," Luke countered. "We walk in there with the Orb and let it do its thing."

"And if there are, as it looks like there must be, enough fonons for _Rem _to appear? Do you think it will take kindly to us absorbing sixth fonons into a tiny sphere?" Jade answered, as though bored with the effort it took to come to his conclusion. Luke looked back at the city, squinting slightly, and then turned to leave the room.

"That's... Luke!" Anise cut herself off when she saw Luke leaving the room, ready to tell him off for leaving for the city so hastily.

Credit must be given to Luke, though, now being wise enough to show some patience. He cut her off with a wave, signaling for her and the others to come with him. "Relax. I'm going to the bridge. A change of scenery might help me think."

Hurriedly, he stalked off for the bridge, leaving the others in his wake. "Well, that's a change," Anise finally said at length.

Luke's behaviour made Jade and Guy smile a little wryly. Perhaps the replica had grown up more than they'd realized.

* * *

"Unbelievable..." Noelle muttered as she looked at the city from the pilot's seat. She heard the door open, and turned to see Luke entering. "Luke! Have you seen it?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the city. 

"Kind of hard not to," he admitted. He sat down and leaned back against the wall, the others hot on his heels and assuming similar positions around the room.

Eventually, Noelle turned to look at them and blinked. She brought her goggles back down to their normal position around her neck and tilted her head a little in puzzlement. "You guys seem somber... what's wrong?"

"We need to find a way to get into the city," Luke replied, rubbing his temples thoroughly.

"But getting in means being blinded by the sixth fonons," Anise sighed, evidently annoyed.

"And the longer it takes us to find a solution, the harder it will be to implement it," Jade concluded, standing at ease as though nothing of dire consequences were going on.

"It's a real predicament," Guy agreed. "We need a way to get into blinding light without being blinded. If only... _ow!_" he exclaimed, as something hard bounced off his head and landed neatly in his lap. He blinked the pain away, then looked down, seeing Noelle's tinted goggles looking back at him.

"They're great for cutting down on glare," she explained, smiling. "Ginji and I use them for safety in case we have to fly toward the sun."

"Noelle, you're a genius!" Guy exclaimed, and the others went about shouting her praises, as well. She rummaged up an additional three pairs (Guy giving hers back momentarily until she landed and then reclaiming them), and the three of them slid them on and tested them out.

Jade turned to the window with his own and looked at the city. His eyes felt unaffected, though getting the goggles to fit over his glasses were quite a trick.

"Are we all right to go, then?" Luke asked, fixing his Key to his back in a better position and looking around the room.

"Never better!" Anise chirped. "Let's get that... thing that's in there!"

Guy laughed. "You said it, Anise."

"Just don't say it again," Jade teased her, glancing over her to make sure the goggles were fitting properly and wouldn't fall off. "There's only so much uncertainty I can take in a day, and Luke fills up the majority of my daily quota."

"...I think I was just insulted."

"You were," Guy laughed.

"_Hey!!_"

* * *

The party crossed the long bridge into Baticul. There were no people on the streets, no cries of a crowd in the Colosseum, no shouts of children, no sounds of animals... _nothing_. The higher area was apparently devoid of sound and life. Luke broke into a jog and headed right for the castle. Well, more specifically, for Duke Fabre's manor. Luke would not be denied his desire to see his family safe, having long since been able to shed feelings that they weren't _his_ family. 

It was a funny realization, he reflected, running up the steps toward the castle square. It was when Asch died, in that instant when he'd gotten the feeling that his _other _had been extinguished nobly, that the seeds of self-worth started being sown in his mind. When he'd returned to Tataroo Valley a year later, it was almost visible in his face: he was _an individual_, no longer merely a copy of someone else.

It was almost funny, he thought sometimes. He couldn't be confident about himself because he'd always had to worry that the other him was better in some regard. But when the other was... _gone, _there was no more reason for him to be inferior. He wasn't _better than _or _worse than, _any longer: he simply _was_, and that made all the difference to him. In living through Asch's death, he evolved from a replica of another to a being all his own.

"Hurry up, guys!" Luke shouted back, running at a full tilt toward the manor. He only stopped moving forward when Jade grabbed him by the collar while they were in the square and held him stationary. "Jade...!"

"Wait," he barked softly, gaze landing on the castle, itself. "I'm sensing an even higher concentration of fonons coming from the castle."

"The castle?" Guy wondered. "That's strange. What would be in the castle that would attract that many sixth fonons?"

"It's not what's _in _the castle so much as where the castle _is_," Jade reasoned. "Light fonons wouldn't gather lower to the ground, where shadows lay. They'd reach higher points. Eventually, all the fonons may gather in the castle, but if that happened, the light emitted would be so powerful that distinctions between night and day would be irrelevant."

"They look pretty irrelevant now, Colonel," Anise commented, looking around in the sky. "It's the middle of the night, now, and we still need goggles to see."

"But we can still see. The moon's still out," Jade informed her, and for once he didn't appear to be annoyed by "imparting knowledge," as he put it. "If worst came to worst, the entire city, perhaps the entire _area_, would be a constant shining sphere of white light. The light might even shine _through _the stone walls of the castle like a fonstone can shine through paper."

"Jade, there's no way light can shine through _stone_," Luke asked, as though to be reassured.

"Yes, I don't think so, either," the soldier replied. "Shall we be going?"

As Jade walked off to the castle, Guy just rubbed the back of his head. He'd made comments after Jade did something like that so many times before, it was no longer _necessary_. Just the head-scratching _motion_ conveyed than he could ever say.

Jade smirked, as though seeing the motion from the back of his head. _Success._

* * *

It was a long walk up the steps to the throne room. Technically, it wasn't any longer or shorter than the other walks up the stairs, but it felt like around the middle of the stairway, an architect had added about three extra flights. The word, of course, was a misnomer, as a quick flight would be preferable to the slow, worrisome trudge up the steps. Jade assured them that the fonon concentration was rising as they went up. 

"I'll get the Orb out, then," Luke told them. "If we're lucky, maybe we'll get enough to match the fifth fonons we've collected."

"No, Luke, not yet," Jade stopped him, catching his wrist as he moved to pull the Orb out of his pocket. "Just wait a moment. Wait until we get into the throne room to assess the situation."

"That's a good idea," Guy agreed. "Come on, Luke. Let's see what's up."

"Up is right," Anise groaned, pulling herself up the final few steps. "This place is rougher than usual."

"Don't worry, Guy will carry you on the way back," Jade reassured her soothingly.

"Somehow I don't think that will end quite well," Anise sighed, absent-mindedly fixing Tokunaga's position on her back. "He's just as likely to drop me down the stairs as he is to carry me..."

"Somehow I think trying to make him carry you will _make him _drop you down the stairs, Anise," Luke commented, giving her a slight grin.

"It wouldn't be on purpose!" Guy defended himself, keeping a few paces ahead of Anise. "Now stay focused!" Jade was ready to come back at him with a good jab, but Guy had already opened the door into the throne room and he figured it better to pay attention.

And pay attention he did! How could one _not, _when surrounded from all sides with the shimmering, blazing light that seemed to _inhabit _the very walls of the throne room? The brilliance of the room would have been permanently blinding were it not for the specially-tinted goggles, and even then it still felt like their eyes were about to choose to stop working, all at the same time. Jade, somewhat self-consciously, fitted his goggles a little tighter, ensuring that they would not slip off over his glasses and eyes.

"Luke," Guy warned.

"I see it."

In the centre of the room, starting out as a bright gold but now slipping into an almost blinding white, was a quickly coalescing sphere of sixth fonons, of pure light, that grew in size until it took up an eighth of the throne room, suspended in mid-air. Once it grew to that size, it ceased its outward movement and almost seemed to solidify for a moment... and then, with an indescribable sound, the sphere retracted, but as it went, _things _began protruding from it. As the sphere hurriedly receded, the shapes came into clearer view, all connected.

"_Resound... The Essence of Glory, open the way..._"

It stood on the stone floor, large talons placing noticeable scratches in the cool surface. Its legs were small compared to the rest of its body, but one got the impression that it didn't matter how tiny the legs were as they were going to go mostly unused. Brilliant wings were folded before the body, enveloping the torso behind a cape of plumage. It spread them, and its wingspan gave the impression that this being was both strong in the air and absurdly agile. Every part of its body _flickered, _as though flames of pure light were dancing across its skin. It hovered, a phoenix of golden-white light.

"Rem..." Anise gasped, stepping back ever so slightly, absorbed in the being's majesty.

Rem craned its head down and looked at them. As they looked back up at it, they began to realize just how high the ceilings were in the throne room, and just how wide the walls were.

Rem had plenty of room to fly.

"You," Rem said, after a few moments of studying them, "who hold the Bane of Existence. What would you seek me for?"

There was silence as a reply, while the group collected themselves. Rem, noting their awe, folded its wings around itself and the familiar sphere enveloped it. This time, however, it grew far smaller before any distinguishable features were seen, and when it was over, a beautiful woman in flowing garb, shining golden and white, stood before them, a serene, but wary, look on her face.

"O most graceful emissary of light, keeper of the just," Anise began, taking her position to mean she had the right to begin. "I am Fon Master Anise of the Order of Lorelei."

"Greetings, young one," Rem replied peacefully. "Your presence is most welcome."

At Rem's words, the group relaxed. Rem, compared to Efreet, had all the inner rage of a stuffed animal (Tokunaga notwithstanding).

"Thank you, Rem," Anise replied. "We've come because your inhabiting the throne room of Baticul is... unusual," she said slowly, choosing her words with care and precision.

"I am aware of this," Rem answered, its smile fading just a little. "I have also heard of your exploits in Daath, child. You must forgive me if I choose to be wary around your group, both in word and deed."

Luke stepped forward. "There's no need for you to be wary! We aren't here to hurt you." Almost in synchronization with his step, though, Rem took a step back.

"The purpose in your hearts and the results of your actions are two entirely different things, young one," Rem replied cryptically. "Even now, as we speak, because you sapped Efreet of his haven on Auldrant, there is proportionally a rise in the presence of fourth fonons."

"Of water fonons?" Jade mumbled aloud. "...yes, that would make sense. Because we absorbed a great deal of fifth fonons, the balance of ambient fonons in the world would become off-kilter."

"Indeed," Rem said softly. "There is also the potential that because you... _absorbed_ the fifth fonons, you have prevented Efreet from ever making itself manifest in the world, again. Effectively," it sighed, "you have killed Efreet."

"That's not possible!" Guy exclaimed. "A sentience can't be killed, can it?"

"Practically no, effectively yes," Jade mused. "A sentience appears on Auldrant when enough fonons of its type gather. Consider that the sentience dwells in the fon belt naturally, but may _appear _in a high-density fonon cluster whenever it wishes."

Anise tilted her head slightly, crossing her arms in deliberation. "Right. So by absorbing the fifth fonons in Mount Zaleho, we made it impossible for it to stay in that area. Efreet was sent back to the fon belt, and we took a mass of fifth fonons back with us."

"But," Rem said, narrowing her eyes at them, "if there is _no _cluster of fonons on the planet, we cannot make ourselves manifest here. Further, since you made it easier for fourth fonons to gather..."

"It becomes harder for Efreet to find a place to appear," Luke realized, mouth slightly agape. "But we can fix that, can't we? We just have to find where most of the water fonons are gathering and absorb those."

"By the time you do, it may be too late for Efreet," Rem scowled at him. Luke was taken aback by her words, and so took a few steps closer to her, but she withdrew again. "Stop!"

"Rem...?"

"You mustn't come near me. You of the Bane of Existence, you must not!"

Luke opened his mouth to argue, but Anise ran forward and cut him off. "Okay, whatever that means, it's not important right now. Rem, you have to leave Baticul. We can discuss this elsewhere." Luke was on the verge of yelling at Anise for wasting a chance to gain a valuable clue, but Rem's sudden and uncharacteristic anger stopped him cold.

"There is nothing outside this city but death for me, Fon Master," it frowned, staring down the little girl. "If you force me out, then I may die, and Shadow may rule evermore over the planet."

"And if we do nothing, the people of Baticul will never be able to return home, and the ones who may be trapped in the lower residential areas may die," Guy countered.

"Rem, I'm sorry," Anise said sadly, "but you have to leave. You can't stay here!"

"I apologize, as well, Fon Master, for I can and _must_," the sentience exclaimed, and the sphere of light enveloped it yet again, retracting to reveal Rem in its original state of the phoenix. Rem opened its mighty beak, and an incredible number of fonons began to gather.

"It's charging for an attack!" Jade cried in warning. "Be ready to move!"

"No, stand there!"

"_Kuroa ryuo zue toue ryuo rei neu ryuo zue..._"

Natalia's advice kept all four of the mortals in range of Yulia's second hymn, and the familiar purple-blue Force Field went up around them, disappearing and leaving those inside with the feeling of a second, ethereal skin. Rem released her Light Blast, but it flowed off the group like water, leaving them all unscathed.

"Tear!" Luke called out, seeing the hymnist at the top of the stairs behind them, clad in her normal Order clothes but with an interesting piece of fontech around her head. When he looked, Natalia was wearing the same thing. "What... are you wearing?"

"It's ancient fontech from Yulia City. They were used as gas masks, for when people went outside the dome to do repairs while the City was in the liquified Qliphoth, but since we didn't need them for that, anymore, we modified them to cut down on this light," she explained, tapping it twice to show its sturdiness.

"Excellent," Jade said. "Tear, come to the front lines and take my place. I'm afraid too much movement will knock these impromptu goggles from my face, blinding me. I'll cast from afar." Tear nodded, and she and Natalia walked forward, leaving the safety of the rear stairwell for the soldier.

"Be careful," Guy warned the girls. "That's Rem we're staring down."

"Rem?!" Tear gasped, but knew, just by looking, that he was right. The manifestation of the sixth fonon, looming before her.

"What are you doing in my father's throne room?" Natalia demanded, bow out and arrow already notched.

Rem did not reply. As far as it was concerned, it need not answer to claims of being in another's throne room. The throne room was now _its._

Rem rose into the air and hovered, shaking and with its wings stretched wide. Suddenly, even more light flooded the room. The light from the lower levels of Baticul raised up and swirled around the castle, creating a whirling tornado of bright, golden, visible light that enveloped the whole of the royal house. The light's arrival around the throne room seemed to bolster Rem with even more power, and it suddenly flung energy outward in haphazard directions. Some of the ambient energy caught Guy in the leg, dropping him awkwardly, but he rolled back to his feet, his sword already comfortably in his hand. Another blast narrowly missed Luke along the back, and a third went straight for Anise. The girl moved to dodge, but wasn't on Tokunaga, yet, reducing her reflexes; the doll was laying, enlarged but unridden, at her side when the light slashed across her face.

Her goggles fell off.

Anise screeched, a horrifying wail resounding off the walls as she quickly covered her eyes with her arms. Both arms were securely tightened against her face, but she could still see exceptional brightness. "Too much light!" she cried in agony. "Colonel! Help... _help!!_" As she began cycling through the names of the other males in the party, Jade was already over to her in three strides. He scooped her up, not even taking the time for her to reduce and collect her doll, and cradled her face against his chest to block out the light, and began running out of the room with her, presumably to get her out of the city.

"Okay," Natalia reasoned, impressively keeping the concern from her voice for the moment. "Let's leave Anise to Jade. He'll make sure she gets out of the city safely."

"Right," Guy prepared himself, shifting into a more favourable fighting stance. "In the meanwhile, we'll take down Rem."

"I don't feel comfortable with this!" Tear called as she darted to the far side of the room, scattering in a familiar strategic formation.

"We're not going to have a choice _but _to be," Luke called back, the Key firmly within his grip and darting on a diagonal vector toward the great phoenix. "Stay focused, and let's take care of this."

"Come!" Rem howled. "_Light Blast!_" and again a torrent of light energy burst toward Luke, which he recognized as a skill he, himself, had used numerous times. Luke cut in low under the attack, and it ended up harmlessly fizzling against the floor, though the carpet did end up quite scorched.

Rem landed and started to swing at Guy with its beak and claws, but the nobleman dodged with agile finesse, coming back with a Void Tempest that startled Rem, but did nothing other than shake it up a bit. Rem flapped its wings and took back to the sky.

"Stay down here!" Natalia cried. "_Gallant Barrage!_" The arrow spray collided painfully against Rem's wings, causing it to fall to the ground, rolling to absorb the shock. Luke ran in and scored a few strikes with the Key, but Rem was back on its talons and moving before any real harm befell it. It flapped its wings to rise again, and grabbed the red-haired replica with its talons as it went, dragging him into the sky.

"Luke!" Tear screamed, her concern momentarily interrupting her casting.

Luke grunted as Rem squeezed its talons. "Let... go, you damned bird!"

"As you wish," Rem replied, flying all the way up to the ceiling and flinging Luke toward the ground. He let out a scream as he realized he was dropping from a none-too-small height onto a hard, stone ground.

* * *

_AN: I'm feeling... generous. While authors often leave ideas strewn about in a chapter as to how a cliffhanger will resolve, I have inserted in the story a full sentence which states how Luke will get out of this (if at all...). In order to find it, you'll have to utilize the number 21 in some way. Just a little puzzle to keep you interested... or see how much attention you paid!_


	6. Valour

_AN: If you want to go ahead without spoiling yourself, then start reading now. If, however, you'd like to spoil yourself with the solution from last chapter's puzzle, then go back to chapter five and look at the first 21 paragraphs. Read the first letter of each paragraph in succession to get the sentence that tells you what's about to happen. Or just read the chapter and look at it after. Either way, enjoy!_

* * *

Luke flew through the air with all the grace of a majestic, adult bald eagle... that was missing one wing and had a heavy stone tied to its ankle.

That is to say, he dropped. Quickly. Out of the corner of his eye, laying discarded (though not by choice) on the ground, Luke caught sight of something large, pale-yellow and ferocious-looking. Also: stuffed.

Tokunaga was laying, enlarged, on the ground.

With no time to think and only time to do, Luke twisted so his back was to the doll, threw an arm out and cried, "_Raging Blast!_" The force of the arte propelled Luke backward toward Tokunaga. The angle had to be just right. Thankfully, Guy saw what was happening and gave Tokunaga a bit of a shove to make sure the positioning was right, and Luke landed on the giant bear, rolling off it, breathing heavily but unharmed.

"Luke!" Tear screamed, keeping a wary eye out for Rem, far overhead.

"I'm okay!" he called back, getting up to his feet and putting himself back into a fighting position. "Remind me to thank Jade for leaving Tokunaga behind when he took Anise," he muttered to Guy.

"If we survive this, I'll be more than happy to," he quipped. "Shall we?"

"May as well," Luke sighed. "Tear!"

"Natalia!" Guy called back.

"I'm on it!" the princess called, notching her next arrow and picking her angle.

"Right, get ready," Tear said, a glyph beginning to glow at her feet.

Natalia's arrow was aimed, but she decided to circle around the room to find a better weak spot to aim for. Rem caught sight of her movement and threw a Light Blast at her, but Natalia saw it coming with plenty of time to spare, so a casual few sidesteps were more than enough to safely avoid the attack. Natalia was about to fire, but caught sight of the particularly high level of light fonons that were left in the wake of the Light Blast (and in this setting, a "high level of light fonons" was saying something). Natalia quickly positioned herself in the field and gathered the energy to her. "O holy lightning! _Voltaic Line!_"

A blast of lightning short forth from Natalia's bow, striking Rem across the top of its left wing. It wasn't enough to completely drop the bird, but it was certainly a serious hit. Rem swung closer to the ground, deciding that pressuring the archer with physical attacks would be better suited to scoring better hits on her, but as it came low to the ground...

"O divine spear, run my enemy through! _Holy Lance!_" Tear called, causing large spears of light to run through Rem. Hard, serrated edges ran against lightly flickering flames of light across Rem's back, but the phoenix was no worse for the wear following the hit. In fact, the attack of sixth fonons seemed to serve to _heal _the bird more than anything, and it stopped favouring the spot where it was struck by Natalia's Voltaic Line.

"Tear, be careful with your light artes!" Guy warned her. "It's just helping it!" He dashed in and threw a pair of Demon Fangs at Rem's body, hoping to distract it from Natalia.

"Right, I'll stick to supporting artes," she confirmed, preparing herself for a hymn, a glyph already appearing around her feet.

While she cast, Guy and Natalia were dealing with being in close and personal with Rem. The Demon Fangs did nothing to distract Rem, and it cornered Natalia against a wall. The princess fired a few haphazardly aimed arrows into Rem's body, but they did little other than bounce off its torso. Rem kicked with its foot, a shot which Natalia barely rolled away from. While Rem's leg was up, Guy used the opening to run beneath it to get to Natalia, covering his entry with a Tiger Blade as soon as he was in front of the bird. The skill pushed Rem back slightly, but it was still close enough to the wall to keep Natalia and Guy pinned down between its wings.

"Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place," Guy muttered, sidestepping an oversized peck and lashing back out with a quick swipe across the beak.

"Indeed," Natalia quickly agreed. "We shall have to force it away from the wall in order to get anywhere." She lined up another arrow and let it go quickly, but it still seemed to be mostly ineffective. "Of course, if it never flinches from our attacks..."

"Get away from my friends!" Luke demanded as he ran up behind Rem, slashing twice across its vulnerable back. "_Raging Blast!_" he yelled as his energy-charged palm exploded into Rem's back. The arte did propel Rem a few meters, but...

"Luke, you're forcing it closer to the wall!" Guy yelled from the other side of the phoenix, and Natalia backed up as far as she could, but it was true: Rem was now even closer in against them. There were only three or four meters to move forward from the wall, and Rem was now coming in with a series of fierce pecks.

"Guy, look out!" Natalia screamed as the onslaught started, and the two of them started dodging in tandem, sometimes dodging in sync, other times individually narrowly avoiding the pointed beak. Once or twice, Guy had to deflect the beak to the side with his sword as he didn't have sufficient dodging room. At one point, he parried Rem's beak, and it overbalanced so much that it left a large divot in the stone wall behind them. A large hole was left, with the occasional piece of stone sticking out.

Rem brought its head down on Natalia. The princess made to move to the side, but as she went, her bow caught on the jutting stone, and, being unprepared for it, her feet came out from under her. She landed on the ground, awkwardly. She was unhurt and narrowly missed being hit by the beak, but Rem saw its opportunity.

"Natalia, _move!_" Guy screamed, watching horrified as Rem screeched and brought its beak in at her. In that instant, three things happened.

Firstly, Natalia had the time to get to her feet and inch backwards, but no chance to dodge sideways. She instinctively raised her arms to her chest, hoping to prevent the beak from tearing into her body.

Secondly, Rem screeched in victory, its beak ripping through the air in a second, deadly attack. The beak hit home, digging into flesh and spilling blood across the throne room floor. Natalia's back hit the wall softly, and she opened her mouth in horror, but could not find the will to speak.

Lastly, Guy tried to say something, but no words came out of his mouth. He clenched his fist for a moment, but weakened and he fell against Natalia. Rem pulled its beak from his chest, and he gasped. The phoenix howled in victory as Guy leaned back against the princess, pressing her against the wall only for support. He had shielded her.

"...Guy...?" Natalia whimpered, and she lowered him to the floor slowly, cradling him and holding back tears. "Guy...!"

Guy's face was a mask of pain, and he held the wound in his chest. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rem preparing for another attack. He gasped for breath to speak. "N...talia... _move...!_"

"But... but then you'll...!"

There was no time to finish the sentence. Rem's beak was incoming again, and Guy used everything he had left to push Natalia out of the way before collapsing against the ground. Natalia watched in utter horror as Rem's beak collided into Guy again, sending him flying into the stone wall. He limply fell to the floor. Natalia saw him lock eyes with her momentarily, and thought she heard him whisper, "Sorry... Nat... I screwed up..."

The princess lifted her bow off the ground. "No, Guy... I was the one who... _screwed up_," she sniffed, gripping her bow tightly as though needing its strength to utter such a common phrase. Her personal lexicon was decidedly unimportant to her at the moment, however. There was only one thing that mattered, and he was laying unconscious and bleeding in her throne room. "So I shall make up for my transgressions. ...leave it to me."

In that instant, fonons of all types gathered in Natalia's body, and the resulting shockwave from having gathered so quickly blew Rem back a couple of feet, although it miraculously didn't touch Guy's prone body at all.

"Child," Rem warned her, "do not think you can compare with my level of fonon manipulation."

"Rem," Natalia growled lowly, her focus sharper than it had ever been, "Do not think you can _escape me._" In an instant, Rem and Natalia were surrounded by a field of whirling blue fonons, and Rem felt a sharp piercing sensation from above go through it. Rem wanted to move, but a yellowish, glowing glyph at its feet held it stationary. "Pour forth, O starlight," Natalia demanded, suddenly feeling an additional burst of power welling from somewhere she'd never noticed before, "and drown mine enemies in your cosmic flood! _Astral Deluge!_" Rem's body was peppered with a swarm of fonic arrows that fell from the heavens, but then Natalia started actively firing multiple arrows, each one stronger than the last, each one imbued with as much power as she felt she could give it. As her arte went on, her rage increased, and she found more and more power to put in each downward-diving arrow until she had no rage left to expend. Rem fell back from her attack, collapsed on the ground.

The flames of light that surrounded its body went out.

"_Guy!_" Natalia shrieked once her rage subdued, as though her memories of the past few minutes had just rushed back to her all in one moment. She ran over to him and slid to the ground next to him. "Oh, Lorelei, oh, Lorelei..." She lifted his head so that he would rest on her folded legs, and looked at his wound. It was fairly severe, several inches wide, and he was unmoving. She pressed her hands up against the wound to slow the flow of blood, and cried, "O divine embrace that fosters life! _Cure!_" A green light washed over Guy's body, and the wound closed up, but Guy did not open his eyes. Natalia fought valiantly to hold back her tears, and cast the same spell again, refusing to give up hope. She was about to totally lose it, but suddenly, she felt something.

Guy was _breathing_.

She gently rested her fingers against his neck, not believing the rise and fall of his chest to signify life, but there it was, faint but present: his pulse. She waved to Tear with her left arm, but her right hand curiously refused to remove itself from his cheek. "Tear, he's hurt!" she called over, voice somehow keeping itself level. "Please...!"

Tear wasted no time in slipping into a casting position. "Return this soul from the abyss of death," she commanded, light fonons gathering around her. "Resurrection!"

The feather of light slipped into view above Guy, dropping slowly onto his still form. It mixed with his body, and a torrent of light splashed upward from him. He opened his eyes, head swimming, but conscious. The first thing he was aware of was being slightly propped up on something, and as he went to grab the wound on his chest, he found it was entirely patched up, though the flesh was still quite pink.

He sat up and looked over. Rem was getting up, but the flames that had initially surrounded its body had all been extinguished. He held his hand against his head for a second, and shook out the bright dots that were floating across his vision. Then he recalled that the brightness was just a part of where he was, and made to get up, but a sudden hug ploughed into him from behind. As Rem stumbled to its feet and began to flap its wings, he looked behind him to see the princess holding onto him tightly, her face a mask of relief. Guy was about to ask her if she was okay, but a sudden, startling thought hit him: Natalia was female.

But he wasn't flinching.

He was about to say something to her when Rem decided that such stationary targets should not go unfired upon. Guy saw the glow of a Light Blast being charged, broke out Natalia's hug, wheeled around and picked her up, running away from the attack which exploded on the ground behind him.

Luke and Tear stopped fighting, gaping in awe for a moment. "..._Guy,_" Luke gasped, wide-eyed. "That's... you...!"

"Natalia's a _girl,_" Tear finished for him. Guy set the princess down lightly, and she quickly turned to hide the blush that had near-instantaneously spread across her cheeks.

"I... I dunno," Guy said slowly. "When she was holding me, I just didn't... react. And then I just felt like I could... lift her up."

"Guy..." was all Natalia could mumble when she turned back to him, but further words had to be spared for after the battle, as Rem was now thoroughly incensed and mobile again.

"Talk later!" Luke warned them. "Get ready for it!"

Rem spiraled upwards, its wings now glowing golden. There were none of the flames on them that had originally been there, but Tear still sensed an intense amount of fonons gathered by the sentience. "Get ready, this is big!" her words rang over the battlefield, hoping to get everyone on their guard.

"I will not give it a chance!" Natalia growled, sending a few arrows in a high arc toward the phoenix. Rem, however, flew off to the side and the arrows bounced harmlessly off the stone wall behind it.

"Your courage and power are impressive, tiny mortal," Rem admitted, "but they are still not a match for my own." The phoenix of light outstretched its wings, and outlines of golden hues spread across them, as though denoting hard plumage. It snapped them forward in a sudden motion, crying, "_Light Spear Shards!_" and the hardened plumage rocketed forward in a powerful spray of solid light. The spears came down in a wide spray, scattering far across the battlefield, and only Tear was out of range of the arte. Guy took up a position in front of Natalia again, this time using this blade to cleave through the shards of light as they neared, either deflecting each one or shattering it to harmless ashes as it came into his range. Luke took up a position behind Natalia, and set up a Guardian Field in the off-chance Guy actually took a hit. The field was unnecessary, however, as Guy got through the attack unscathed. The shards that sailed wide shattered and had their ambient remaining fonons absorbed by the walls.

Rem became frustrated, losing its usually permanent sense of calm. Screeching, it dove at the group of three, a purely offensive strategy that the group's teamwork was more than sufficient to deal with. When Rem got close enough, Natalia popped out from behind Guy's back and fired an arrow into Rem's eye. Blinded on the right side, it collided painfully against the ground, and skidded in front of them, rolling over once.

"That's as far as you'll go!" Guy cried, leaping up to the stunned sentience. "Final Cross!" One, two slashes in a cross pattern across the chest of the bird, and Rem howled in pain. Then Guy raised his blade and brought it immediately down, the point having impaled the bird by a few inches. Then Rem noticed that the first two slashes left a pattern on the ground, which now exploded upward with a great burst of fonons, tearing through its body and, for the first time, leaving visible wound lines in vertical patterns across its flesh.

"That's it, we're hurting it!" Luke encouraged his friends, running forward. "_Slag Assault!_" He flipped in the air and slammed the Key against the ground, raising a flurry of stones ripped from the floor of the room which collided painfully against the phoenix. Rem stumbled backward, losing its footing.

"I shall... _must not _lose like this!" it howled, shaking its head as though loosening the arrow from its eye would restore its sight.

Natalia drew an arrow from her bow as a slow melody floated to her over the wind: "_Va Rei Zue Toue Neu Toue Ryuo Toue Kuroa._" The power of the third hymn, Holy Song, revitalized her spirit and she felt her own physical limitations fade away slightly. In that instant, with her strength feeling limitless, she decided the chance to be a little reckless was upon her. She ran forward, calling to Guy to aid her as she went.

It only took one word, "Up," for Guy to understand exactly what the princess was planning. She caught a brief glimpse of concern in his face, but he hid it quickly and nodded. Natalia ran up to him, and he dropped his sheath and held out his hand like a step, waiting for her to step up. Their ability to read each other's thoughts at that moment was utterly uncanny.

Rem, however, was not impressed, and just when Natalia reached Guy and was about to engage their unspoken plan, the being suddenly gathered a mass of fonons like Natalia had earlier, and the sudden shockwave knocked the pair back together, also sending Luke sprawling across the floor in another direction.

"You have fought valiantly," the phoenix complemented them, "but there are to be no more games. _This is the end_."

"I won't be defeated so easily," Natalia shot back (figuratively), rising to her feet and bracing herself for whatever was to come.

"No. This was not easy," Rem admitted with a hint of amusement in its voice. But it changed back to anger when it burst, "But I will end your lives with no more delay. _Prepare!_"

At Rem's words, a furious storm of light fonons spiraled around it. Rem took off into the air and channeled all its fonons around itself. The swirling golden-white energy made it practically impossible to get a good shot in.

"This is bad," Tear cried over the storm. "Luke and Guy can't hit it while it's up there, and my artes have no effect!"

"Natalia!" Luke shouted to her, his sword already held up in a guarding position. "It's up to you! You have to hit it!"

"I'm on it!" she called back, sending a line of arrows, one at a time, in heavy arcs at the bird. The bright storm, however, diverted them all, and each arrow went askew in random tangents, clattering against the stone ground.

"That won't work against me!" Rem said, uncharacteristically taunting its foe. "A single arrow, no matter how many fired in succession, will _never _piece this wall!"

"Then," Guy exclaimed, "how about a _Demon Fang?!_" He swung his sword in a sharp snap, and a burst of combat energy flew toward the bird. Again, however, the wall of light stopped it, diverting the energy in a wider arc that got caught up in the swirling fonons.

"I am afraid not," Rem replied simply.

"If one arrow won't get to you." Natalia frowned, "then let us send half a quiver in your direction! _Gallant Barrage!_" The flurry of arrows, about ten in total, flew straight and true toward Rem, but again, the swirling wall caught each of them, sending them all flying in scattered directions.

"A very clever gambit, but still doomed to failure!" Rem shouted gleefully. "Just as are you! Come and burn in an inescapable cyclone! _White Cinder Storm!_" The fonons that were surrounding it now coalesced into a stronger wall around Rem's midsection and beneath it, and began to stretch outwards. The wall crept steadily, and, despite that the fonons had further to travel, they were _increasing _with ferocity as the wall grew.

"That's going to be fatal in about half a minute!" Tear informed them loudly, hand gripping her staff tightly. "We need to do something _now!_"

"Guy!" Natalia screamed. "That plan, from a moment ago...!"

Guy looked back at her incredulously. "You can't go _up _now with that thing moving in on us!"

"And if I do nothing, we die, anyway!" she countered. "_Please_. Let me..." and she stopped, as though coming to a realization of what she wanted to say, but being scared to say it. Guy's jaw was set, but he realized that there might not be a better chance.

"...okay," he said, before the Cinder Storm grew too large to do anything about. Dropping his sword and setting both hands together as a makeshift step, he added, "If you promise me you'll come down in one piece."

Natalia drew an arrow and ran forward toward him, preparing to step up, calling, "Just as long as you promise to catch me."

"I couldn't do anything to make that pretty smile disappear, now could I?"

As though it were practiced, Natalia stepped onto Guy's hands. Guy immediately leapt up, crying, "_Soaring Light..._ um... _Ladder?_" Guy jumped in the air as though performing a Soaring Light Spear, taking Natalia along for the ride. At the apex of his jump, he used the fonons gathered in the arte to force his second leap in midair, a skill that was only known to very practiced users of Sigmund-style artes. At the pinnacle of _that _jump, he finally gave Natalia what she wanted: a boost for a high leap into the air.

The jump was picture perfect, as right when Guy boosted her, Natalia leapt with a gathering of her own fonons, a skill she perfected with her Star Stroke arte. When all was said and done, Natalia was in the air, above Rem, above the White Cinder Storm's spinning wall, for Natalia had noticed the weakness in Rem's arte.

It did not protect Rem from above.

"You," she raged from high above, fitting a final arrow into her bow, "_shall not threaten my kingdom!_ _Piercing Line!_" She fired the arrow with all the might she could muster, and it flew straight and true, with Rem not having the time to dodge or cancel its arte to protect itself. There was only Natalia, and a target dummy, like she'd trained with. The only difference was that there was no white-and-red bull's-eye to hit, but she could have sworn she saw one, embedded on the back on Rem's neck, fully exposed.

Sometimes she missed the bull's-eye, when she was a child. That didn't happen very often, anymore.

The Piercing Line pierced, indeed, ripping through Rem's neck, tearing flesh and soft insides, alike. Rem suddenly dropped to the ground, and, its concentration broken, lost fonon control. Its arte dissipated, the wall fading into nothingness. As Rem hit the ground, it almost seemed for a moment that it was slipping _through _the floor, but when it touched the stone, its body faded, and returned into ambient fonons.

Natalia gracefully spun in the air to make it a little easier to be caught, and Guy, with _no hesitation_, plucked her out of midair, holding her for a moment longer than was necessary (out of pure novelty, he convinced himself) before setting her down gently.

"I'll take it from here," Luke said, rushing forward and bringing out the Orb of Lorelei. He raised it above his head, and the fonons began being drawn in. By the time he was done, the sixth fonons had all drained slowly into the Orb, leaving Baticul in its original condition, and the Orb displaying its contents proudly, for all to see. The fifth and sixth fonons mingled to create in the orb a rosy pink hue. Luke pocketed it and resigned himself to never show Anise what it looked like, for the overwhelming pink would undoubtably see her stealing it.

...assuming she could still see.

* * *

Jade showed up back at the throne room once the light had died down and it was safe to see without the goggles. As it turned out, the wall of light that had begun spiraling around the castle when Natalia first challenged Rem was too blinding for Jade to risk taking Anise through without goggles, and so he had instead kept her in a corner, holding her face against his chest to block out the light and cradling her head as best he could. To take off his own goggles would have been more dangerous: even if he'd given them to her, _he _would then be blinded, and he doubted Anise could cover his whole face. At least, not without Tokunaga, which he came back to collect, now. 

Anise's eyesight ended up being okay. She was momentarily blinded, but now that the light had died down, she found that her vision was coming back to normal. The outside edges of her sight were still a little fuzzy, but she said it was getting better with the darkness of night once again fallen over the castle, and so they decided to wait until morning to see if she needed medical attention.

Jade took Anise back to the Albiore so she could get some bed rest ("Don't you dare wake me up before noon, Colonel!" the girl had exclaimed. "I need my beauty sleep!"), leaving the other four standing around the throne room. At Guy's prodding, Luke and Tear also went off on their own. To Luke's megrim, Guy had let a none-too-subtle hint go to Tear that she might want to ask how Luke was doing, and the replica was now resigned to speak to Tear (and, Guy hoped, to Guy, himself, later) about why he'd been so reluctant to involve her in the journey to that point.

Luke shot a venomous glare back at Guy as he left the throne room with Tear at his side, the latter silent, but Natalia had the feeling that wouldn't last long. At last, the throne room was devoid of people, save for Natalia and Guy.

"So," Guy started, leaning back against the wall, "the residents of Baticul seem to have gotten out of the way, safely?"

"Yes," the princess replied, a hint of pleasure in her voice. "We had about eighty percent of the residents out of the city, but we didn't have time to get the remaining people from the lower levels. I'd imagine most of them had gotten out on their own, however."

"Where did you put them?" the swordsman blinked.

"It turned into one large camping excursion, I suppose," she answered thoughtfully. "The royal guard set up a perimeter when we got them out to the field, and created a temporary safe haven for them. They're only about two kilometers out of the town."

"That's close to the city, but I guess you could have moved them again if the light kept spreading," Guy said approvingly. "Well done, Natalia. Not like we expect anything else from you, now, though."

"Yes... thank you, Guy," she smiled, turning away slightly. "And... thank you. For earlier, as well."

"Huh?" Guy wondered. "Oh, you mean for..."

"Yes," she said. "For... for that," and she looked over to the blood that remained on the floor and lower wall, now hardening into a dark reddish-brown crust. "I was careless."

"Hey, come on, now," Guy interrupted cheerfully. "You were amazing! And you were the one to deal the final blow, too, remember?"

Natalia expression clearly stated that the final blow did not make up for the danger she put him in. "Yes, this is true, but... you nearly died because of me..."

"That's not your fault," Guy said quickly, stepping off the wall and moving a few steps toward her. "Those things happen in battle. You know that."

"I was careless."

"You couldn't have done anything differently."

"I could have thrown your life away!"

"And I was expected to throw _yours _away?!"

She stopped for a moment. "Guy... I... thank you."

"You're welcome," he smiled. "Now, come on. We should get back to the citizens, and we can take you in the Albiore."

"I would like that," she admitted, but instead of leaving, she moved closer to him and touched him on the arm. Again, he didn't back away.

"Natalia..."

"Guy... you aren't scared anymore?"

"I... don't know," he frowned. "I don't feel different... I feel like I would still be scared if a woman touched me, but..."

"Wait," she cut in smoothly, "are you trying to say I'm not a _woman?_"

"N-no! Not at all!" he hurriedly came back, and it was in relief that he saw her laughing as genuinely as he'd ever seen her do so. Suddenly, she stepped into him, laid her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso.

Hugging him tightly, though feeling no return pressure, she smiled, "We... did make a good team... didn't we?" she asked. "We did well?"

"Natalia..." he said softly. "Yeah. We did."

"...I think... I'll be counting on you from now on, Guy," she whispered, just loudly enough for him to hear.

"Okay," he said in the same hushed tone, his arms still hanging limply at the side. "I'll be counting on you, too. We'll have to work in sync like we did there from here on."

She smiled, waited a moment, and then lifted an eyebrow, but didn't look up at him, yet. "You know... you _are _allowed to return a hug."

"A-are you sure about this?" he stuttered. "I mean... obviously I've never... done this before and... I'm a Malkuth noble and you're from Kimlasca, the princess, and..."

"Guy," she smiled again, "I order you to hug me."

Guy had many questions he wanted to ask, still, not the least of which was what Natalia was going to say when she'd cried, "_Please_. Let me..." but thought better of asking it. After all, an order was an order, and he'd been ordered to hug her.

So he did.


	7. SomeThing

It was a very strange place to talk, but the two of them had grown somewhat accustomed to the place, resting against the metallic, curved surface and bathing in the silvery moonlight that poured down over the hull. Atop the Albiore, in the middle of the night while Natalia and Guy were speaking in the castle, Tear sighed inaudibly and turned to Luke, the latter promptly not meeting her gaze.

"Guy seemed to think you had something to tell me," she started innocently. Never let it be said that the hymnist couldn't be subversive when she wanted to. After all, half of her gaze was always hidden behind her hair; Luke found it impossible to read what she was thinking.

"He would..." Luke muttered, leaning back and laying down on the hull, his arms crossed behind his head into a makeshift pillow. "It's nothing, really... You don't have to worry about it."

She frowned at him, crossing her arms across her chest. "That's not what you meant to say. I _think_ you were looking for, 'I don't want you to worry about it,' right?"

Luke smiled somewhat sadly. "Am I really that easy to see through?"

"Kind of," she grinned back, but the smile was short-lived as she fixed her usual serious expression back to her face. "Now what are you hiding?"

He reached back into his pocket and withdrew the Orb of Lorelei, holding the shining pink sphere up for her to examine. She took it in her gloved hands, and turned it over in her hands, penseive. "Luke, this is... _beautiful_."

"I guess that's one way to look at it," he replied grimly. "Do you remember when I disappeared at Eldrant for a year?"

She jokingly hit him on the arm. "Do you think I need a reminder?" She bit her lower lip for a moment, but stopped, and by the time Luke had looked at her, her normal expression was fixed back on her face, again.

"Sorry," he said automatically. "Anyway, when I released Lorelei into the fon belt, there were a lot of seventh fonons around. A large amount of them came together and formed this. We've been calling it the Orb of Lorelei."

Tear examined the Orb curiously. "It's pure seventh fonons?" He nodded, and she posed, "But then why is it glowing bright pink?"

"The Orb has the capability to absorb fonons," Luke explained, "or so Jade says. Before we came here, we were in Daath, where a lot of fifth fonons had gathered. We absorbed the mass of fonons that Efreet had used to manifest itself, which had turned the Orb shining red. Then we absorbed the fonons that Rem used to manifest, as well, and the Orb turned into this lighter shade of shining pink."

Tear gaped for a moment. "You four fought _Efreet?!_" she asked incredulously.

"Yup. You should have seen Anise in that battle," he recollected, "she really did grow up a bit, there."

"It sounds like you have, too..." she complimented. "But how does you having this Orb pose a problem?"

"...Tear, do you remember-- no, that's a stupid way to put it," he admonished himself. "Of course do you. How I was fading into nothing because my fonons couldn't hold together, a year ago, you remember that?"

"Yes, you're right, of course I do," she replied slowly.

"...it never stopped."

She slapped him. Luke held his cheek and rose to meet Tear evenly, as the hymnist was already on her feet and angry. "Luke, I can't believe you! You never told me you were still sick!"

"I only found out a few days ago!" he came back. "I haven't _seen _you since then!"

"Guy made it sound like you weren't actively going out of your way to _find me_, either," she argued, giving as good as she got.

"That's...!" and the replica stopped, looking down like a child caught doing something wrong. "I wanted to get it resolved before I saw you again..."

"Luke...?"

"I promised not to hide anything from you!" he burst, as though he'd wanted to say this for a few days but couldn't bring himself to. "And if we came and saw you right away, I would have had to tell you everything. You would have worried about me. _Again!_ But if I took care of this before I saw you... if the problem went away first, then there was no longer anything to hide. You wouldn't worry..."

Luke was shaking, something Tear noticed regularly whenever he went off on one of his short soliloquies about his potential impending death. She took his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder to try and reduce his shaking. "You idiot," she said, falling into familiar territory, and held on to him a little tighter than was absolutely necessary. "Does this mean you have a cure? And how are you still alive if you've been losing fonons all this time...?"

"Two things happened when I was alone at Eldrant," Luke said, choosing to answer the second question first. "First, I received the Orb. Second, when Lorelei passed into the fon belt, my contact with it basically imbued me with a large amount of seventh fonons. It's like I had a reserve of extra fonons added to what I already had."

"Yes... and that would prolong the time it takes for you to dissipate," Tear muttered, the gears now turning in her mind. "And the solution to stop you from dissipating entirely?"

"The Orb," Luke replied simply. "Jade says that something outside my body is absorbing my seventh fonons, which is either speeding or causing the dissipation to occur, and there's a good chance it's the Orb, itself." Tear, at this point, came very close to throwing the Orb off the ship entirely, but waited to hear the rest of the explanation. "The Orb can absorb fonons, but it's useful for something else, too. When an equivalent amount of fonons are placed into it, the Orb breaks those fonons down to something even more basic than fonons, and reforms them as the seventh fonon."

"That's... _impossible!_" Tear exclaimed. "Fonons can't just be... _altered_ like that..."

"But that's what this Orb can do," Luke assured her. "Jade even did experiments on it to made sure."

"...and the Orb has the fonon level of two sentiences in it," she whispered softly. "If we could let the fonons out, there would be enough to make Rem _and _Efreet appear, if they wanted..."

"Too dangerous," Luke shook his head. "They don't exactly like us right now, and besides, we don't know if it's even _possible _to remove fonons from the Orb."

"Fair enough," Tear conceded. "So is your plan to somehow gather enough fonons of the remaining four types to have the Orb convert it all to seventh fonons?"

"Right," he confirmed, nodding his head slightly. "Once we have that many seventh fonons in place, Jade says I need to find a way to absorb the Orb into my body like I did the Jewel that Lorelei sent me."

"Of course," Tear smiled. "It's so obvious, when you think about it... that many fonons inside you will draw your seventh fonons inward, holding you together... how ingenious, Luke!"

"Hey, don't give me the credit!" he blanched. "It was Jade that did all the thinking for it, anyway."

"Yes, I shouldn't have thought you'd come up with an idea like that on your own," she teased, squeezing his arm to show she was kidding.

"Thanks," he muttered. "Well, at any rate, the challenge now will be to find places where the other four sentiences will manifest themselves, if at all." He paused, as though in thought. "Although, really... from what we've heard from Efreet and Rem, it seems like all the sentiences will have to appear down here, sooner or later..."

_"I cannot leave!" Efreet burst, and the magma around them began to churn again. "There is no going back... my home is _this _or _death_."_

_"There is nothing outside this city but death for me, Fon Master," Rem frowned, staring down the little girl. "If you force me out, then I may die..."_

"Efreet and Rem said they had to come here?" Tear blinked.

"Yeah, it was something about there being nothing but death for them outside of where they'd appeared," Luke sighed. "But they wouldn't explain any further."

The two remained silent for a few moments, each lost in deliberation in their own heads. Tear was trying to piece everything together, having just now heard all the information for the first time. She had the vaguest feeling that everything was all connected back to one source, but what that source was...

"Oh!" she gasped suddenly, as though just remembering something critically important for the first time. "How could I have forgotten? In Yulia City!"

"Yulia City?" Luke wondered.

"Yes! There's a gathering of first fonons just like what we saw here with sixth fonons!" she exclaimed.

"Really?!" he shouted happily. "That means... Shadow?"

"I think so," Tear replied warily. "And with the Orb, we can finally take care of everything that was happening there. Will you come with me to Yulia City, Luke?"

"Are you joking?" he smiled back at her. "If Shadow's really going to show up, there, then I should be asking _you _if you'll come with _me _to Yulia City!"

"Either way, we'll go together," she confirmed.

"Just like old times," he grinned. Then they broke into laughter, as though finally coming to understand that they'd be travelling together again, their lives intertwined as though by fate. For once, Luke decided that he could accept what fate seemed to have in store for him at face value, no worries in store.

He would have preferred not to be disappearing into nothingness, but at least he had a cute girl at his side!

* * *

"Colonel," Anise whimpered, blinking when the two were alone in the cabins of the Albiore. They'd just heard Luke and Tear go up abovedecks to the hull, and Noelle was busy cleaning the cockpit, so she didn't mind letting down her happy, brave front just in front of Jade. "My eyes... they still hurt..." 

"I would assume so," he said lowly. "That light was not meant to be seen with eyes uncovered."

"Am I going to be...?" she asked, rubbing her eyes to try and ease the stinging sensation.

"All right? Able to see well again?" the colonel supplied, and Anise nodded glumly. "Yes."

"I was so surprised," she said, as Jade led her into bed. "That light was able to shine right through my arms and hands, but something as simple as goggles were able to block it out."

Jade coughed shortly. "Don't feel too badly. That light was bright enough to go through bodies, goggles... even stone, if we had given it more time."

"But... the goggles _stopped _them," Anise stated, confused.

"The goggles stopped them because before we entered the city, I laced them all with an embedded layer of first fonons, and kept an eye on them as we progressed to make sure the layer stayed up in all of them," Jade explained, fixing his glasses subconsciously. "Unfortunately, I did not take the time to infuse the same fonon shielding into your _arms_, Anise, which is why you saw the light so clearly." He pulled the covers up over the girl after she laid down, and set Tokunaga down on her bedside table.

"Colonel!" she gasped. "That's really impressive! Is that why we never left the castle when you took me out of the throne room?"

"Yes," Jade confirmed. "When we left the room, we stopped at the bottom of the stairs because we needed to be out of range of the battle, but I had to be close enough to keep an eye on the goggles. Though," he smiled a little, "I admit, when your pair broke from the light attack, it certainly made it easier to keep an eye on three goggles rather than four." Jade opened and closed his hand, as though tracing something invisible flowing around it. He looked at the girl in the bed with a critical eye.

"Oh... well, I'm glad I helped you, Colonel," the girl grinned at him, speaking slowly and with as much cuteness as her tired frame could muster. "But if the light could go through flesh, why was your body such a safe place from it?"

"Because once I'd grabbed you, I assigned that same layering of darkness fonons to flow through my torso, acting as a buffer against the light," he explained simply.

"_Colonel!_" Anise exclaimed. "You really _are _amazing!"

"Was this ever in question?" he teased her.

"Not once!" she confirmed. "So what happens to my eyes, now?"

Jade frowned. "Well, we've prevented permanent damage," he said, "and your eyes would likely heal naturally if we left you alone, but since we're likely to be involved in a lot of combat in the near future, I'd like to heal them up a little faster." Again, he opened and closed his hand, as though testing the ability of his fingers to flex.

"Do whatever you have to, Colonel!" she chirped. "I trust you..."

"Indeed," he smiled, his Jade smirk back in place. "Well, now, what I'm going to do is infuse your eyes with a temporary influx of first fonons. The darkness should help your eyes heal faster and more efficiently, counteracting any remaining light fonons that shouldn't be there."

"How long will it take?" she asked, a little wary.

"It will be done by morning, I believe, and your eyesight should be back to normal," the soldier replied, "but you're going to feel stinging in your eyes for a lot of the night, and that will fade by morning. The stinging feeling is from the light and dark fonons reacting to each other."

"..._painful_ stinging?" she shrunk a little.

"Unpleasant, but far from painful," he admitted. "But you'll be asleep for most of it, and we can get Natalia to ease your pain if we must. If you can't sleep through it, we could get Tear to put you to sleep, as well."

"I'll pass," she shuddered, not wanting to take a Nightmare directly with her guard down. "Go ahead," she said, steeling herself.

"Very well," was the reply, and then Anise felt a slight stinging sensation begin in her eyes. It never grew to outright painful levels, but it was rather distracting.

"Is this it?"

"Yes, it should be," Jade answered calmly. "Oh, and I'm afraid you're not allowed to rub your eyes for the rest of the night," he warned her. "We don't want to risk you rubbing that first fonon layer away."

"...You didn't tell me that before you started!"

"You hadn't asked."

"Boo!"

* * *

The next morning came faster than anyone was really hoping for it to arrive. Anise awoke to find her eyes back to normal and no longer stinging, so she set her hair again, fixed Tokunaga to her back and headed for the cockpit. 

"Good morning!" she chimed cheerfully, announcing her presence with a ringing voice.

Luke looked back to see her enter. "Wow, Anise, even I beat you up this morning!"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "So what? Wait until I wake up and I can beat you up this afternoon!" she said, patting the doll on her back. She turned away from Luke to look around the room. "Two, four, six... we're missing someone."

"Natalia's leading the residents of Baticul back into the city," Guy said immediately. "She'll be here soon." The others sent a curious look in his direction, and Guy froze. "W-what? What is it, guys...?"

"Oh, nothing important," Jade replied, smirking.

"Yes, important!" Anise shouted back. "That was a _really _quick answer about Natalia, Guy! Is there anything you want to tell us...?" she asked slyly, leaning into him.

"N-no! Nothing!" he cried, leaning away.

"Actually, Anise, you want to hear something interesting about Guy?" Luke smiled mischeviously, and Guy mouthed, "No!" several times. "During the fight with Rem, he got over his phobia of women. He was holding Natalia like she was _tethered _to him!"

"Luke..." Tear admonished, barely concealing her own growing grin.

"_What?_ Really?" Anise asked. "Is that _true, _Guy?" she questioned, leaning in even more to the swordsman.

"No! I'm not... please get away!" he exclaimed as Anise edged in closer and closer to him.

"Oh, come on, Guy, enjoy your freedom!" she shouted, leaping at him, and it was only to keep from being bowled over that Guy caught her. Anise's eyes widened for a moment as she realized she was actually in Guy's arms _safely_, when...  
"..._Waugh!_" Guy shouted, his phobia overcoming all pretenses and unintentionally throwing the girl a meter into Luke, who caught her easily.

"Wow, you're pretty light, Anise," Luke remarked.

"Guy!" Anise complained. "I thought you were _over _that silly phobia!" She kicked her feet in anger, and Luke almost dropped her for her struggling.

"Settle down, Anise, he can't help it," Tear said soothingly. "He'll be okay eventually. Just give him time."

"Please!" Guy added, his violent shaking just now subsiding.

"Oh, boo. Fine," the girl agreed, jumping down from Luke and landing on the ground. She walked up to him and pointed a finger up to him, saying, "But Guy, you have to promise me you'll get me the _minute _your phobia wears off!"

"W-why?"

"So I can see if you'll serve as a suitable Tokunaga!"

"...that's... wonderful inspiration, Anise. I'll be right on that."

* * *

Natalia was never the most intelligent person in the royal family. Her belief in her ideals often saw her believing the unlikliest of tales (usually from Anise). She was, quite simply, gullible. 

Her ability to lead, however, was second to none. When she'd arrived at the makeshift residential fields outside of Baticul, it only took her two minutes of a stirring speech with carefully chosen words and few details scattered about to have the populace, with few stragglers, up and marching back to their beloved city of light within the hour. King Ingobert smiled silently, watching her daughter as she led their people, a figurehead for their unified front. He was proud of her.

When the last of the stragglers were safely back inside the city gates, Natalia embraced the king at the threshold of the bridge. "I'll be leaving for a while, again, Father," she said as humbly as she could manage. "Guy has informed me of the condition that ails Luke, as well as the problems that may be rising around the world. This is no time for me to be sitting idly in the castle."

Ingobert nodded somewhat sadly, but did nothing to let his sorrow at seeing her leave again show. "Yes, I had a feeling you'd be saying something like that." He sighed. "You won't be taking any royal guard as an escort, again?"

She shook her head, smiling genuinely. "Thank you, Father, but it's easier to move as a smaller group, and if there are any more battles like the one against Rem, I'm concerned even the royal guard would have difficulty protecting themselves, let alone me."

The king's grip tightened on his staff. He'd heard from her already that she'd been fighting against the sixth sentience, but the thought of it still scared him to the depths of his being. His little girl, grown up and fighting the unkillable! It was, at the very _least,_ preposterous.

And yet, here she was, having done it and still safe and sound before him. "I understand," he replied simply. "Just be careful, my daughter. Come home whenever your group needs rest."

"We will," she said, nodding. "Don't worry about us, too much. We've fought as a team for a long time," she reflected. "We know how to protect each other."

"Yes," Ingobert said, hiding a grin, "it does seem like you always have a good guy protecting you."

Natalia flushed immediately. "Father! That... that seems like very common language for one of your status to be using!"

"Oh?" he chuckled. "I thought they were very precisely chosen words, but I guess I'll take your word for it." And, laughing, he hugged his daughter one more time and turned, walking across the bridge that led into the city. A few of the royal guard lingered to see Natalia to the Albiore safely, but once she ascended the ramp leading into the craft, they, too, turned back to attend to their duties at the castle.It was late-afternoon when she boarded, and as soon as she appeared on the bridge, Noelle took off. Luke had already given her a destination.

"My, but this is a rather sudden take-off. Good afternoon, everyone," the princess said cheerfully when she appeared. They spoke loudly to be heard over the roar of the engines taking off.

"Welcome back, Natalia," Guy replied, sharpening his sword in the corner.

"Why are we leaving with such haste?" she asked, grabbing a rail to stay standing as the Albiore jerked into movement. Recalling Tear's home, she wondered, "Do you think things have grown so dismal in Yulia City that we must get there so quickly?"

Luke volunteered the information quickly. "Well, since we defeated Rem, it would be easy for first fonons to gather. And if they're gathering in Yulia City, then not only will Shadow be there, but it will be really easy for it to gain power."

"Right," Anise added. "The sooner we get there, the better. If we have to fight Shadow, then it'll be better to cut it off before it gathers too much steam."

"Yes, but at this rate, Yulia City will be pitch black by the time we get there from the mass of fonons that are covering the city," Tear supposed. "It will be impossible to see once we get in."

"So what are we going to do?" Natalia asked. "It seems like you already have an idea."

"Yes, we do," Jade said in his disturbingly cheerful voice. "Guy, would you explain, please?"

Guy was about to ask why he had to do it when Natalia caught glimpse of the smirk on Anise's face. The princess cut off any smart remaks by asking, "W-why does Guy have to explain things to me? Are you insinuating something, Jade?" As soon as she said it, however, she realized what a mistake she had made.

"Not at all," the colonel replied smoothly. "Guy always explains things for me."

"Don't say we aren't, Colonel!" Anise cut in, elbowing Jade gently. "Did you see her reaction? We have to insinuate something, _now!_"

"A-Anise!" Guy and Natalia cried in unison, each glowing red.

"I'm afriad," Jade sighed, removing his glasses and cleaning them with the back of his sleeve, "that I'll leave those insinuations to you, Anise. They're more your field of expertise, anyway."

"You got it, Colonel!" Anise chirped. "I won't let you down!"

"_Anyway_," Luke coughed, cutting off the troublesome pair, "Jade figured that we can get the Orb of Lorelei to help us see in Yulia City."

Tear jumped in. "The Orb shines when it absorbs fonons. If we keep it out while we walk around Yulia City, it will absorb the first fonons that surround us."

"But," Guy explained, "it would shine darkly, if you could imagine that, and so it wouldn't help us see."

"I understand," Natalia replied, sitting next to Guy and thinking while he sharpened his sword. "So what we need to do is find a way to get the Orb to also absorb another fonon type while we're there?"

"You got it!" Anise exclaimed. "Fifth fonons would work well, since fire usually produces light, anyway, but that source can't be too strong or else it would throw the balance of fonons in the Orb out of whack."

"So what we need is weak fifth fonons?" Natalia wondered. "Oh, I understand!"

"Exactly," Luke smiled. "We just need something to provide us with a weak supply of fifth fonons."

"Luke," Tear admonished him lightly, hands on her hips and leaning in his direction slightly, "don't you mean some_one?_"

"No, I'm satisfied with saying some-_Thing_."

Noelle checked their positioning. "It will take us a couple hours until we get to Cheagle Woods," she informed them.

"So quickly?" Guy blinked. "That Refined Flightstone really does help the overall speed of this thing... I'd love to study it more closely, one day."

"I'd offer to let you go look at it, now, but I don't trust you to do that without forgetting we're flying and taking it out to examine," Noelle muttered dryly, bringing laughs from the others.

"Hey, now, I'm not that bad!" he cried.

"All right, settle down, everyone," Jade said to quiet the laughter. "You'll upset the woman-hater."

"_Come on!_"

* * *

The sun was setting over the Rugnican plains when Noelle finally landed the Albiore. The craft settled down on the grass with a softening whirring, scaring nearby monsters into a temporary retreat. Noelle lowered the ramp, and the group descended to the plains. Luke stretched, taking in the sunset with a calm expression on his face. "I never noticed how nice the sunsets were the first time we were here," he commented off-handedly. 

"That's because the last time we were here, you were busy stealing apples and kicking small puppies," Tear said dryly.

"I never kicked a puppy!" he cried back.

"I wouldn't have put it past you," she replied, smiling at his expression. She stepped off the ramp onto the plains, digging her foot into the ground once or twice to test the traction she'd have if she had to move quickly. It felt all right.

"I wasn't that mean, was I?" Luke frowned. He again adjusted the Key on his back; it was becoming a nervous habit to do so, he realized.

"No," Tear admitted, "but I _did _get you to admit you were busy stealing apples."

Luke gaped, remembering how vehemently he'd denied stealing anything when he was in the farmer's village for the first time. "That...! I didn't_ know any better!_" he shouted.

"Tear, please stop teasing our thief," Jade requested calmly, walking slowly toward the Cheagle Woods. "He may take our weapons when we aren't looking."

Luke scowled, muttering, "What am I going to do, Jade, take your _arm?_"

Batting her eyelashes, Anise snuck up beside him and sweetly said, "You can take _mine_, if you like, Luke..."

"Quit while you're ahead, Luke," Guy laughed, following Jade. "I don't think it's possible to win this one."

"...you know, I could still throw Anise at you," Luke flushed, looking away. Guy feel silent.

With Natalia bringing up the rear, the group entered the Cheagle Woods, and followed a familiar path toward the cheagle's home, a large tree that sat in the centre of the forest. The closer the group got to the tree, the thinner the monster populations became. The tree released pollen that all monsters, save cheagles, found intolerable. With the exception of an occasional boar, however, the monsters that inhabited the forest were hardly a threat to the group. In most situations, when a monster came near, Jade would place a hand on Anise's shoulder to get her attention, point at the offending creature and say, "Have fun," and Anise would rush off on Tokunaga, much to the monster's megrim.

"Man," Luke sighed as they neared the tree's entrance and Anise finished off the last monster in their way, "do you remember when the monsters here were actually a bit of a problem when they fought us?"

"No," Jade answered honestly.

Luke walked into the tree, and immediately his head jerked back slightly, a sudden weight pushing his head back. "That's funny," he said dryly and somewhat muffled, "this tree is a lot darker than I'd remembered."

"That may be because Mieu attached to your face the moment you entered," Natalia said informatively.

"_Mieu mieu mieu!_"

"Gee, do you think?" Luke asked sarcastically, pulling the little cheagle from his face and smiling a little, studying their old companion. "Hey, you gave the Sorceror's Ring back, didn't you?"

"Mieu mieu..." the cheagle answered, nodding.

"Well, where's the Cheagle Elder, then?" Guy asked. Mieu pointed to the back of the tree. Sure enough, the Elder was sitting there, just where they'd always seen the revered animal, wearing the Sorceror's Ring.

"You've returned," the Elder said, looking with unexpected happiness at the affection Mieu had greeted Luke with. "Is this just a visit?"

"I'm afraid not," Luke replied. "We have a bit of a situation."

"Yes," Jade interrupted him, as though a sixth sense told him this was the proper time for his usual introduction. "Guy will-"

"_No, he will not!_" Guy cut him off, pushing the soldier forward. "Your turn, oh great Jade!"

"Oh, never mind, I'll do it," Luke sighed, and even Jade could only barely hide the grin that was spreading across his face at having dodged another chance to explain something.

The Cheagle Elder did not show any emotion as Luke's tale unfolded; he left out the details about his own _phasis_, but instead just related the details about the sentiences appearing and the strange Orb of Lorelei. The Elder agreed that the details were probably related to each other and gave consent for Mieu to travel with the group again.

"I will loan you the Ring again, Mieu," were the parting words, "but you must be careful and return it as you did before."

"Mieu mieumieu, mieu!" replied the Thing, and it slipped the Ring around its belly again, feeling the familiar powers the accessory granted it. "I can talk again, Master!" he squeaked, and hopped up into Luke's arms.

"Tell you what," Luke smiled slyly, "just in case the Ring has limited power, why don't you not talk a terrible lot so we don't waste the Ring's energy unnecessarily?"

"Don't worry about that, Master!" Mieu said reassuringly. "Since all the fon verses are enscribed in the Ring, the power the Ring uses should be returned to it. It's like a big circle of fonon power, now!"

"That's... wonderful, Mieu," Luke said, forcing a smile on his face. "Everything I wanted to hear and more."

"_Mieu, mieu!_" the cheagle in his hold replied happily, and it bounced over to Tear, who promptly hugged it warmly.

"Welcome back, Mieu," she said softly, holding the little animal close.

"Okay!" Luke coughed. "L-let's get going for Yulia City!"

Guy quickly stepped up beside him and started nudging his side with his elbow. "Why in such a hurry, Luke? You're almost sounding jealous of Mieu..."

Tear promptly flushed scarlet and Luke shot back, "Anise. Airborne. At you," causing Guy to start a quick pace back to the Albiore.

"Come on, come on!" the fon machine buff called back, "Yulia City won't save itself!"

"So it would seem," Natalia sighed, following in his footsteps.

* * *

They found Noelle asleep back at the Albiore (she had an amazing ability to sneak in catnaps whenever the chance arose), so Jade woke her up gave her the heading: Yulia City. He recommended that because they would have been slated to get there around midnight due to the power of the Refined Flightstone, that they hold off and depart early morning. "We'd be in a bad situation," he suggested, "to appear in a concentration of darkness when it's already midnight." 

"We wouldn't be able to see even with the Orb?" Anise asked.

"Even with it, we'd be too blind to fight," Jade informed her.

"So why," Noelle mused, an unusual frown on her face, "did you wake me up if we aren't leaving until morning?"

"Yes," Jade smiled in his usual Jade voice. "Luke, why _did _you wake her up?"

Luke sighed. "I can't even tell when you're being serious, anymore..."

"Well," the soldier yawned by way of response, "I'm serious, now, about wanting to go to bed. Good night." With his sudden departure, the others slowly filed out, one at a time, everyone realizing that sleep would prove to be vital for the coming day. Noelle drifted back off to sleep in the cockpit, leaving Luke alone in the room with Tear, the latter already with her back to him and leaving the room.

"Tear," he said suddenly, meaning to catch her attention before she'd left.

"Yes?"

"About tomorrow... and Shadow," he asked slowly. "Its going to be a lot more difficult than the fight against Rem, isn't it?"

"Yes, I believe so," Tear replied calmly. "Since we've taken in a large amount of sixth fonons, we've made it easier for first fonons to gather. That means that Shadow will have an easier time gathering its power."

"And we'll have a harder time gathering fonons for light-based attacks to use against it," Luke reasoned, and a slight nod and smile from Tear confirmed his reasoning. When she smiled even deeper, however, he couldn't help but ask, "What?"

"Oh... it's nothing, really," Tear replied, but the inquisitive look on Luke's face said he wasn't ready to drop it, yet. She sighed. "When we were first thrown to Tataroo Valley, you didn't know anything. Now, here you are, with great fonon control, making logical conclusions about fonic physics. Comparing how you were back then to how you are now is just..."

"It's not that big a deal," Luke said quickly, rubbing the back of his head and deflecting her comments with an embarassed grin. "I'm... well," he stuttered, and Mieu popping out of the item bag cut him off.

"Master is embarassed, mieu!"

"Shut up, Thing!"

Tear shook her head to straighten her hair, sending it back into comfortable paths along her shoulders. "So what did you want to ask about Shadow, Luke?"

"What do you know about it?" the replica questioned. "I mean, I know it'll be using a lot of darkness-based artes, but other than that, I have no idea what to expect."

The hymnist closed her eyes, as though needing the break from sight to pull forth long-forgotten tidbits of information from her memory. "Shadow is one of the most dangerous sentiences," she admitted. "And it will be even more so now because it will be gathering first fonons at an unbelievable rate."

"Why is it so much more dangerous than a normal sentience?" Luke asked, praying to Lorelei that he wouldn't regret those words.

"The other sentiences have fought you, themselves," Tear said delicately, speaking softly so as not to wake Noelle. Luke still looked puzzled, however, so she continued with her explanation. "Look, my Nightmare hymn can put a person to sleep, right?" Luke nodded. "Well," she continued, "a lot of higher-level darkness-based artes are centered around twisting the target's physical, mental or emotional statuses, like Nightmare and sleep."

Luke frowned. "So Shadow's going to fight us not with brute force, but with altering our ability to fight back?"

"Pretty much, but it's more than that, too," she said, somewhat melancholy. "Shadow fights you by making you fight _yourself_."


	8. Fractures

Tear woke in the morning to the hum of the Albiore's engines running through her ears. She turned over in bed, yawning quietly, and rested for a moment more before lifting herself up. She sat on the edge of her bed, her bare feet rubbing the cold floor gingerly, as though waiting for it to warm up before coming to rest on it. She noticed Anise and Natalia, the former still asleep but the latter now stirring, laying in their beds in the girls quarters as well. Tear dressed quickly and slipped away to the cockpit.

She arrived to find Noelle in the pilot's seat, guiding the vessel to Yulia City. Tear noted with a little surprise that she wasn't using any of the navigational tools. "Good morning, Noelle," she greeted.

Noelle waved and gave her a smile. "Good morning, Tear! Did you sleep well?"

"I've slept worse," she evaded, not willing to say that she spent much of the night turning over in corcern for the coming battle. Perhaps it was because this battle would take place somewhere that was so dear to her, but the battle against Shadow was truly bothering her. Shaking her head to clear it of these thoughts, she asked Noelle, "Have we dragged you around the planet so much that you don't need navigational equipment any longer?"

Noelle smiled. "Not at all. It's just easier to fly when I have a beacon guiding me."

"What do you mean?" the hymnist blinked, confused.

"Well, it's early morning, sunrise," Noelle explained. "So, the whole horizon should be bright and glowing with the sun coming up."

"...should be?" Tear asked, already knowing that she wouldn't like the answer she was about to hear.

"Yeah," the pilot confirmed, signaling with her hand that Tear should come closer. "But look right ahead of us on the horizon. The sun's coming up over there, to the east, and everything else is correspondingly bright. But..." she said, pointing and letting her actions speak for themselves.

Tear looked out the window to see a beautiful horizon, marred by a _dent _of darkness directly before them in the distance. It looked as though a child had taken a pencil that shined in a glowing black shade and scribbled a semi-circle on the edge of the world. "Yulia City..." she muttered lowly.

"You may want to wake up the others," Noelle suggested. "We'll be there soon, and it'll take a while to wake Luke up." Tear chuckled, knowing well how true the pilot was speaking, and went off to rouse the group.

* * *

The Albiore landed in a wide space out front of Yulia City, a spot which Noelle had used as a landing platform several times in the past. The Albiore's own internal and external light fonstones were barely enough for the girl to land the craft safely. It was a testament to her own skill that the machine touched down with little more than a slight jostle. The group thanked her for her help, and promised to be back soon, disembarking and proceeding carefully but quickly into the City of Watchers. 

The first fonons that were growing over the dome were now completely enveloping the city. The entire city dome was coated by a dark purple, almost black, coating of darkness fonons. The very area, to the finely tuned fonist, was resonating so powerfully with first fonons, it felt like one's own first fonons were struggling to leave the body and join the mass.

"All right," Luke said, pulling the Orb out of his pocket. "You're on, Mieu!"

"Mieu! Yes, Master!" the cheagle cried, leaping forward and taking the Orb in his stubby arms. "It's so pretty, mieu..." Tear looked away, blushing, but Anise didn't feel like commenting.

"Now, Mieu," Jade said, kneeling down to make sure the monster had a firm grip on the sphere, "all you have to do is shoot the Orb with your fire every so often; about once in a half-minute should do."

"Mieu _mieu!_" was the reply, as he shot fire at the Orb. As predicted, the Orb absorbed the fonons, glowing bright pink and bathing the area in light so the group could see.

"Just as we thought," Natalia said, satisfied and with a hint of confidence in her voice.

"Yeah, and the Orb isn't changing shades, either," Guy observed, "which means the balance of fonons in the Orb shouldn't be thrown off."

"Precisely," Jade agreed. "Shall we go in a little farther, then?" He set off at his normal relaxed pace, hands in their respective pockets.

"Right," Anise grinned, the anticipation of a fight rising in her blood. "Let's get this taken care of!"

"...yes," Tear said with hesitation. "The sooner, the better."

Luke, despite his own proficiency at being unobservant, caught sight of Tear's reluctance. "Tear, are you... okay?"

"W-what? Yes, of course," she said suddenly. "I'm perfectly fine. Let's go on." Luke frowned, but followed her as she led the way into the city, staying just a step behind her so he could watch her as they went.

He did, however, take the time to mumble lowly, so only she could hear, "You know, that promise should mean that you can't hide anything from me, either." She flushed a brilliant pink and, though Luke couldn't tell from his position behind her, a troubled look came over her eyes.

The group walked all over the city, the Orb slowly absorbing first fonons as they went. They looked through the larger residential areas and the conference room, but there was no sign of Shadow. It was about noon, after they'd walked through the most obvious and largest areas for a few hours, that conversation finally struck up again meaningfully. "I suppose," Jade muttered dryly, "it's waiting for us to get tired from walking before it comes for us."

"Maybe it's just scared of us," Anise offered hopefully.

"Yes, Tokunaga is a rather fearful being," Jade agreed, and Anise swelled with pride. "Just don't get too overconfident, Anise. The last thing we need is you behaving like Luke."

"_Hey!_" Luke cried.

"_Colonel!_" Anise complained. "I'm _way _too cute for that!" Jade just smiled, his expression revealing nothing of his own thoughts.

"Maybe we should take a break, though," Tear suggested as they left the town square. "It wouldn't do to meet Shadow after we're tired from having walked all over the city."

"I believe you're right," Natalia said, nodding her head in assent. "May we return to your house, Tear? It's very close, if memory serves."

"Yes, of course," Tear replied, she and Natalia walking off, leading the group to the hymnist's residence. The group entered quietly, as though half-expecting Shadow to jump out at them the moment they entered the house. The attack never came, however. The only sounds that could be heard were regular calls of, "_Mieu mieu!_" and, "_Fire!_"

The group sat around in Tear's entrance hall for a while, thinking silently. Jade had been seated at the table, thinking calmly, when he suddenly stood up. Anise looked over and asked, "What's wrong, Colonel?"

"It's here," he replied simply, walking up the stairs to Tear's bedroom. "Be ready." The group walked up the stairs, following him resolutely, and Jade led them into Tear's garden. A mass of first fonons was hovering, drawing together, growing over the selenia flowers.

"My garden...?" Tear blinked. "Of course... selenias grow in darkness. They wither in light."

"Yeah, so this area has to be great for first fonons," Luke reasoned. "Damn, how did we not think of that?" Tear frowned at herself. How had _she _not thought of that? It was _her _garden!

Tear kicked herself for thinking in pity when something so important was happening before her. The first fonons had coalesced together, just as the fonons of light had in Baticul. A low humming sound came from the mass, and a deep voice boomed forward.

"_Resound... The Inner Sight, open the way..._"

The first fonons swirled around in a maelstrom of fonic energy, blanketing the spiraling fonon's core from sight for a moment, and when the curtain dissipated, a sentience was standing in the middle of the garden. Shadow was humanoid in form, clad in deep, shining black armour, with dark purple lining the edges of the metal. A long cape flowed from its shoulders, pitch black on the back and a deep, dark purple on the inside. A sword was sheathed at its hip, so all that could be seen if it was the hilt, black but sparkling, protruding from the case. Shadow wore a helm, but there was no slit to see out. It was as though its very face was a black, metallic, smooth knight's helm.

"O keeper of the soul--" Anise began, but was immediately cut off in the middle of her preamble by the sentience.

"I know who you are, child, and who your compatriots are," it answered in a deep, reverberating voice. "I know why you have come, as well."

"But we don't understand why you've come!" Luke cried. "Why are all of you sentiences appearing here? Has something happened in the fon belt?"

"Silence!" Shadow exclaimed angrily, and with a snap of its arm, a burst of first fonons bolted in Luke's direction, a preemptive attack he barely dodged. "_You _have no right to comment on events in the fon belt," it raged, "_you_, who seek to bring me ruin, _you_, of the Bane of Existence!"

"Ah, I see," Jade mumbled calmly. "That does make more sense..."

"Jade?" Guy questioned. "What have you figured out?"

"Oh, enough," the soldier replied. "I believe I've figured out why the sentiences are appearing here and what the Bane of Existence has to do with it." He fiddled with his glasses, and added, "I'll fill you in when we're done here, Luke. I don't believe you'd like to be distracted right now."

"Right, thanks," he replied, and was too focused on Shadow to see the look of intense relief on Tear's face.

"Silence, human!" Shadow raged, sending yet another blast of darkness out, this time at Jade. The colonel had no problems dodging the attack, and it soared past harmlessly. "Do not be so presumptuous as to speak on behalf of the sentiences! _You _have no concept of what has occurred!"

"That's enough, Shadow," Anise suddenly jumped in. "If the Colonel says he's figured it out, he's figured it out." So confident were her words that Shadow's hand moved to his sword hilt in an instant, and he looked ready to leap at them at the slightest provocation.

"Shadow," Tear warned him, "we don't want to fight you. Please reconsider."

"Do not worry, girl," the sentience answered, and she swore she could see the metal of his helm _grinning_. "It is not _I _you will be fighting!" With a hand on its hilt, a massive amount of first fonons gathered around Shadow's hand.

"Look out!" Natalia screamed. "This will be powerful!"

"Dodge it!" Luke shouted somewhat unnecessarily, and the group began to scatter to be harder targets to hit.

Shadow, however, was not to be fooled. "You can never dodge that which encompasses all!" it cried, and drew the sword from its scabbard. To Tear's surprise, there was no sword attached to the hilt; it was just a dark handle. She almost felt relief, but then a mass of first fonons began bursting from the hilt, creating a giant focus point of energy. "You can never dodge yourself!" Shadow screamed. "_Fracture Field!_" Shadow slammed the hilt against the ground, and a large dome of first fonons immediately spawned beneath it and exploded outwards. Guy was the first to be hit, and Tear saw him for a split second, darkness pouring forth from every oriface in his head, before the Field struck her, as well, and she succumbed to the blackness. She never felt it when her body roughly collided with the ground.

* * *

For a moment, there was only blackness. Luke was partially aware that he was somehow conscious, but he didn't feel his body at all. It was as though he, at once, _was_ and _was not._ He was alive and yet could not feel. He could feel, and yet there was nothing tangible to touch, to reassure him that he was _somewhere_. He wasn't, he could tell, back in the garden. There was something that just felt... _different _about this place. 

His consciousness drifted for a moment before he noticed his body was being pulled together. Once he felt solid again, he touched down on solid ground, though it was black and didn't look any different than the walls or ceiling that were around him; if there _were _any walls or ceilings around him. He was just standing in a pure black void, no details anywhere.

No... there was a detail! Off in the distance, coming closer. Red on top... white around the middle... dark by the legs (did it have legs? It was hard to tell against the blackness...). It was moving. Luke walked forward to meet it. When he got close enough to see what it was, Luke gasped. Standing before him was a man wearing his clothes, with the long hair he used to wear. It was...

"You," the other grinned maliciously, though with no real hatred in his voice.

"You?" Luke blinked back.

"Me."

"Us..." Luke gaped.

"What the hell kind of joke is this, anyway?" the other demanded. "I don't have time for this."

This brought Luke back to reality. Shaking his head, he agreed, "R-right! Neither do I. Where the hell are we?"

"Don't play games, you bastard!" the other cried. "What was your name? Asch? Get out of my way!" And the other drew his sword and charged Luke, who only just managed to draw his Key and parry the attack.

"I... I'm not Asch!" Luke cried back with a little more anger than should have been required.

"I don't care who you are!" the other burst. "You're in my way! I have to get to Master Van and you're standing between me and him!"

"M-Master Van?!" Luke cried. "Who _are _you?!"

"Who am _I?_ Who the hell are _you?_" the other demanded. "And what are you doing with _my face?_"

"I'm ready to ask you the same question!" Luke shot back.

"My name is _Luke fon Fabre!_" the other cried. "I'm the ambassador from Kimlasca for Akzeriuth, and _you're _standing between me and Master Van! Now _get out of my way! Fang Blade!_" Luke was so stunned at what he was witnessing that he took the full brunt of the attack, falling back against the ground.

_W-what's going on?_ he thought in confusion. _This... this is _me_, but... I'm on my way to... to Akzeriuth...?_

"Wait!" he cried suddenly, back on his feet, and holding his sword as non-threateningly as possible. "You can't go to Akzeriuth! You have to trust me!"

"Why the hell should I trust _you?_" other Luke screamed. "Just get the hell out of my way! _Havoc Strike!_"

"Luke...! I'm... I'm...!"

* * *

It was a decidedly strange sensation, Natalia noted, descending upon a black realm. She looked around, but every direction felt the same as the others. She began to walk, but wherever she went, she felt the same. There were no bearings. _Noelle, _she thought grimly, _would die in a situation like this..._

Ahead of her, two figures were standing. ...no, one was kneeling, and the other standing as though _lording _over the kneeling one. The standing figure was using a wide range of arm movements as though conveying superiority through body positioning. When it moved closer to the kneeling figure, the kneeler edged away, and this seemed to infuriate the standing figure all the more.

Natalia broke into a run, determined to stop the standing figure from hurting the kneeling figure. It was only as she got closer that she realized that she was watching herself, aged two years younger, shouting at a servant Guy. Guy was holding himself stationary in a kneeling position, but was under considerable obvious duress to do so. Natalia's every word seemed to be hurting him. The real princess wasted no time in hurrying over to the pair, and grabbed her doppelganger by the shoulder, turning her as though to study her closely.

"Well!" the other complained. "How _dare_ yo- who _are _you?"

"Guy, you're dismissed," Natalia said sweetly, and the illusion of Guy faded into the darkness. "Where are we?" she asked, her voice steady.

"How dare you speak to me so forcefully?" came the reply. "Remove your hand from me. Do you have _any idea _to whom you are speaking?"

"I have a better question," Natalia answered coolly. "_Do you?_"

Natalia barely had time to think before she felt the slap come across her cheek. "Do not make demands of your princess!" her other demanded. Natalia's head was reeling almost as much from what she was seeing as it was from the blow. "Who are you?"

"My name is Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear," she said simply. "Not that you couldn't have seen that for yourself."

"Lies," the other immediately lashed out, swinging another slap, but Natalia caught this one.

Natalia stared herself down holding her other's wrist tightly. "What do I have to do to convince you?"

"Bow."

Natalia's face hardened. Was she really like this, before? "I apologize, but I don't bow. ...the floor is somewhat dirty, as well." Her other swung with her other hand, but Natalia caught that, as well. "I can't _believe _I was you, once. Was I really that mean to Guy...?"

"To Luke's servant boy?" the other blinked. "That wasn't mean, at all. If he can't handle being that close to me, then..."

"I know, I know," Natalia muttered impatiently. "...'then however will he manage to serve me when we're married?' Honestly..."

"It's rather frightening how much you know about me. How long have you been stalking me?" the other muttered angrily, hands clenched tightly.

"I'll stop stalking you if you'll be nicer to Guy," she offered. The other's face softened for a moment, and Natalia relaxed just enough to not be prepared for the kick that came and struck her shin. She released her double's wrists, wincing in pain, and the other took her opportunity to slap her a few more times.

More painful to Natalia, however, was the realization of just how mean she'd been to Guy in the past. _He's never been anything but kind to me_, she thought_, and this is what I was like? ...how did the others tolerate me...?_

* * *

_You must be kidding me_, Guy thought somewhat bitterly, looking, quite literally, at nothing in particular. His feet felt cold. Whatever he was standing on was almost _radiating _a sullen, mystifying chill. The air (was it air? Nothing felt right, here...) was misty, and he would have sworn at that moment that he'd rather be surrounded by the miasma than this. 

He decided to try walking, hoping something would avail itself, and so he trudged on through the blackness, hoping he would neither walk- or fall- into something. Off in the distance, there was a figure of some sort. The top appeared light, almost golden... blonde hair! It was a person. And Guy ran forward to meet this individual, hoping that whomever it would turn out to be, he or she would prove to be the solution to escaping Shadow's realm. He reached her, and slowed down. If it were a male, Guy would have just tapped his shoulder, put up a friendly grin, and asked for help, but since she was female, he obviously had reservations about doing so.

"Um... excuse me," Guy started, and the woman turned around to see him. In that instant when their eyes locked, when Guy and the woman saw face-to-face and recognition dawned in the swordsman's mind, all normal functions in Guy's body stopped: breathing, thinking, feeling, _moving_; he simply froze. He looked into his sister Mary's eyes without looking. He saw without seeing. He was without being.

She blinked. "Ah. Gailardia," she said, apparently happy to see her little brother. "What brings you here?"

Time started moving again for Guy, and he shook himself out of his reverie so suddenly it was as though his mind quickly snapped back into his body from a long vacation somewhere. "W-what brings _me _here? Mary... what... what are _you _doing here?" The words came slowly to his mouth, and he continually stuttered when he spoke. He'd seen his sister as a replica numerous times on his journey, but it never stopped his emotions from running wild every time he saw his slain sister moving.

Once she was dead and bleeding and still atop him. Now she appeared alive and whole and _still _he wished it were true. He wanted to put his past behind him; indeed, he thought he had so many times before, but something always, always came up to remind him. His past lived as though in the shadow at his feet, he realized; as he faced the sun of his life, it would always be behind him. It could never be escaped.

"Aren't you happy to see me here?" Mary asked slowly, reaching forward to press a hand against his cheek. He instantly moved backwards, more out of habit than fear.

"You can't be real," he rationalized. "You're not Mary! Where are we?!"

"Why can't I be real?" Mary asked. "What's stopping me from being real?"

Guy shook his head vehemently and backed up another step. "Don't... don't you _dare _play with my memories of my sister! I... I _saw you die!_" he screamed, fists clenched tight. "I _know _you're not real!"

"There's that word again," Mary said softly, smiling slightly. "Why can't this be real?"

"Because it's-"

"If I'm standing in front of you, Guy," she continued, as though he weren't about to answer her, "if you can see my body, if you can smell my perfume, if you can feel my flesh," and here she reached out slowly and he did not back away, and her hand traced a soft path across his cheek, "if all of these things are true... how am I not real?"

"You're not Mary!" he cried again, as though the words were about to become his own, personal mantra. "Mary lived on Hod, with me. Mary died in the war. Mary was my sister. You are _none _of those things! You're not Mary!"

"And Luke's not... who?" she sniped back, her voice cold as ice. "Luke's not Luke. He's a toy. A pawn. A _pretend Luke_. He's not a real Luke. He's not _real, _either." She stepped forward, and he fell back.

"But he's..."

"He's your _real _friend even if he's not a _real _person?" she pressed him. "So why can't _I _be your _real _sister, Gailardia?"

"...my... sister?"

Mary rose and began walking around the space. "Humans love to have control over their world. And in order to control something, they name it. When something has a name, humans feel like they can control it," she explained, walking in slow circles around the dazed nobleman. "Names give humans control. Humans want control to make sense of the unknown. The unknown becomes familiar when it is named. Do you see?" Guy nodded, slowly. "This place is unknown to you, Guy. _I _am unknown to you. But all you have to do is name me- "Mary"- and it will all make sense. All you have to do is give me that title- _sister_- and all the fear and confusion goes away. You come full circle, back to your life in Hod."

"...in... Hod..."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"...I... I..."

* * *

"Well, I suppose we're bound to get careless every once in a while," Jade sighed, rubbing his glasses though he knew full well that it wouldn't help him see anything in the blackness. _But still, this is rather discomforting_. 

"Do you think?" came a child's voice from off behind him somewhere. "It's rather intriguing, don't you agree? I'd love to observe this for a while longer."

Jade froze. He knew that voice. He probably knew the speaker better than he knew himself.

"...I see. So that's the kind of place this is," the colonel muttered to himself, refusing to turn around to see who had spoken. He didn't need to see him with his eyes, however; he knew precisely who it was just by hearing his voice, alone.

"Don't you like this place?" he asked, a hint of sadness in his voice. "Or do you not like me?"

"I don't much care for Shadow's tricks," he replied. "Shadow is adept at attacking opponents with painful things from their past. No doubt at this moment my comrades are undergoing similar trials, their own demons haunting them."

A confident expression fell over the being's face, though Jade didn't see. "Am I just a demon to you, Jade?"

Rarely angered, Jade looked back over his shoulder, looking upon himself as a child. Jade's red eyes blazed, glinting in the blackness. "You tell me."

The child laughed, walking up to the colonel, entirely unafraid. "I don't see why it would matter," he said, smiling. "You never listen to anyone else, anyway." Jade scowled, looking at him with narrowed eyes, his usual calm countenance now being replaced by a long-subdued anger. "Why so angry, I?"

Jade sighed sharply, not feeling the need to explain himself to himself. He summoned his spear, and in a flash of gold, the weapon materialized in his right hand, its weight soothing. Here was something that was least _tangible_ in this twisted realm. He dashed forward, his spear a blur as he closed in on his child self. "Begone! _Sonic Spear!_" The blinding attack shot forward, propelling the metal point for the double's heart, but the spear ended up going _through _his body, a slight ripple waving through his appearance as it went. "I see..."

"You can't hurt me, Colonel," the other said. "Rather, you can't hurt me any more than you can hurt yourself. But," he went on, shrugging his shoulders with an annoying casual air about him, "then again, I suppose you _have _been hurting myself to a large extent, haven't I?"

His other's tendency to switch between pronouns bothered Jade more than it confused him. He frowned, withdrawing his spear and unsummoning the weapon, looking down upon himself with a face that was equal parts sorrow, regret and contempt. "I'm leaving," the colonel stated simply. "I don't have time to spend here."

"Do you ever take time for me?" came the other's slow reply. "You're not very selfish, am I?" Jade didn't bite. He started walking away.

He tripped. The child was underfoot, having suddenly crossed the distance between them as instantaneously as Jade could blink. "You..."

"It's not nice to walk away from someone when they're talking," Jade heard his other say. "Why would you do that?"

The soldier turned his back and said wryly, "You know as well as I do what a cold person... _we _are." He sighed at forcing himself to slip into the mixed pronouns that his other (or former?) self seemed determined to use to death through their conversation. "I suppose _we _don't think _you're _worth _our _time."

The other laughed, a childish, joyous laugh that Jade did not think he was _ever _capable of making. "And who is worth my time?"

Jade's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't answer.

"Come, there has to be someone worth your time..."

The colonel, for once, was speechless. There were at once a dozen and no answers fluttering about in his brain, but not one of them seemed willing to cross the paths of nerves to get down to his mouth, to jump from his lips and float freely in the air. Such was it always with him; answers always came, but he could never bring himself to speak them.

"If there's no one worth your time," the other sighed, "You're just boring." He was suddenly cross-legged on the floor, with a reduced-size Tokunaga in his hands. "I guess we'll just entertain ourselves, then... I wonder how Dist made this tick..." A scalpel appeared suddenly in his hand. Jade knew what was going to happen before it did; after all, he remembered what he _would _have done when he was that age.

Child Jade brought the scalpel down in Tokunaga's torso. Jade expected fontech and stuffing to slip out. Nothing escaped the doll except for a blood-curdling wail, given form with Anise's voice.

"_Stop!_" Jade found himself demanding the cessation before his mind even processed the word.

His other looked at him strangely. "Why should we? I'm curious. I want to see."

"You're hurting...!" and Jade stopped. Hurting what? The doll? It wasn't Anise. It just used her voice for some reason. It was this blasted shadow realm, that was all!

"I'm hurting nothing," his other replied, and stabbed again. The doll- no, Anise- screamed louder. Jade winced visibly, listening to the girl wail.

"That's enough!"

"It's not!"

"Give it here!" And Jade reached for his little self, but the child disappeared, slipping through his arm (or perhaps it was that his _arm _slipped through _him_), reappearing a few steps away.

_Stab. Scream._

"Stop!

_Stab. Scream._

"Give it here!"

_Stab. Scream. Stab. Scream._

"...Anise...!"

* * *

Anise saw nothing but black, but that wasn't for lack of light. Her eyes were closed voluntarily, her head turned to the side and resting against his shoulder, her arms around his slight frame and tightly holding him close to her, or keeping herself close to him. Either way, the two were closer than Anise would have though it possible, and she had no intention of letting go. 

Just two Fon Masters, wrapped up in a cocoon of arms, surrounded on all sides by an endless expanse of blackness.

"Ion..." Anise managed to mumble through the cloth over his shoulder. "I'm... I'm _so sorry_," she cried, and began weeping softly against him.

"It's all right, Anise," Ion replied, rubbing her back as he held her. "You didn't really have a choice, did you?" The young former Fon Master smiled serenely, resting his cheek against the side of her head as she continued to weep into the crook of his neck.

"I... If I didn't, then... then Mama... and P-Papa..." she said, stuttering through her tears.

"Don't worry, Anise," he said soothingly. "You were forced into everything. I _understand._"

She let go a little, pulling out to look him in the eye, as though not believing he was so accepting. "D-do you really?"

"Yes," Ion answered. "I understand you were a lying, conniving, servant wench."

Anise gasped, and felt like his words had punched her in the side of the head, most likely because he had actually just _punched her in the side of the head_, sending her flying to the black ground where she struggled to rise. She looked up, barely seeing him through teary eyes. "...Ion...?"

"You killed me, Anise," Ion said, but now he was using Sync's voice, cold and cocky. "I never did anything to you, Anise. I trusted you." And he knelt over her, grabbed her face roughly and brought it up to his, saying darkly, "You were my _cherished._"

Anise reacted swiftly to these words, tearing Ion's hands off her face, and jumping backwards, massaging her sore cheeks tenderly. "You... you're a faker! You're not Ion! Who are you?!"

"What does it matter if I'm not Ion?" the fake replied, laughing. "Ion doesn't exist anymore, so someone may as well take his name." He barely had time to jump backwards as Tokunaga's paw came swinging wildly at him, Anise atop the fierce doll and attacking in a flash. Then came the other paw, and the first paw again, and Tokunaga's _head _even came down, hoping to hit him. "Now, now, Anise," he taunted her, having not dropped Sync's voice, "what's the matter?"

"You... _you're _the matter! Shut up!" she screamed back, charging after the dodging Ion with a fast-waddling Tokunaga.

A voice rang out from behind her, "Why am I the problem?" Anise looked over her shoulder, barely dodging a flying kick as Ion came soaring from that direction. There were now _two _Ions, each dressed the same, each using Sync's voice, standing side-by-side. "Can you not accept me as Ion?"

"You're _not _Ion!"

"Neither was Ion!" replied the first, tauntingly. "He was just a fake version of the real Ion!"

"If he could be Ion, why can't I be Ion?" the second asked cockily.

"Or I?" questioned the first.

"You can't _be _someone else!" Anise cried from atop Tokunaga, and the two Ions broke into fits of laughter.

"You accepted the replica as Ion! You even called him Ion!" the second one screamed back.

"We didn't know!" Anise cried back, her grip on Tokunaga's head tightening.

"But you can't accept that Ion might be mad at you, can you?" the first laughed. "I see, now. You don't care about someone pretending to be Ion, you care about Ion understanding what you did, and why you did it. All _you _care about is having Ion forgive you."

"I..." Anise stopped. She _did _want that. To have Ion's forgiveness...

"You could accept a new Ion," the first smirked darkly, "but not one that won't forgive you."

"...shut up!"

"And we won't forgive you!"

"_Shut up!_"

"So come and see what righteous judgment can be!"

"_I'll kill you bastards!_"

* * *

Tear shuddered. It was cold. 

It was cold and dark. Dark and lonely. Lonely and cold. Everything seemed to come full circle and yet to never leave. Everything went and came, left and stayed, ascended and descended. Everything changed by staying the same. Nothing she thought about in that blackness made sense, and yet it seemed that it was only through the confusion was she able to make sense of the world.

She brought her hands up to their opposite arms, rubbing them for warmth. This blackness was cold. Figuring that moving would at least be better than standing around, swallowed by blackness, she began to walk. Each step seemed to bring her closer to nothingness, but at the same time, she was leaving nothingness behind her, as well. There was nothing on the horizon, no matter where she walked.

She sighed. That Fracture Field arte... it was deadly. She was utterly trapped here, not knowing where "here" _was_, and not knowing how to even _start _going about getting back. A short sigh of discontent escaped her lips. "We just got careless."

"I thought I'd told Legretta to teach you to _not _get careless on the battlefield," came his familiar voice over the non-existent wind. "It's a shame you never seemed to learn that lesson, Mystearica." Tear clenched her teeth. Clad in his full armour was her brother, sword at his hip, looking every bit as deadly and imposing as she'd seen him that last time at Eldrant.

"...Van," she answered coldly, as though using her tone to maintain distance. "Where are w... Where am I?"

"You still haven't learned anything, have you?" Van said, and _his _tone made it sound less like a question and more like an indisputable truth. Even now, Tear found herself intimidated by her brother.

"I've learned enough," she came back, her face and voice displaying no emotion. If nothing else, she had at least learned to disguise her feelings, well. That was ideal in a soldier, and she'd learned the skill with artful finesse.

"Like?" Van asked.

"I don't need to explain myself to a phantom," Tear argued, raising her staff against him.

"I'm hardly a phantom, Mystearica," her brother smirked. He started approaching her, but she stood her ground. "All I wanted to do was save you, Tear. Save you, and help you understand what truth was in this world."

"I know what truth is, _Vandesdelca_," she shot back, her fear slowly slipping away. With every step he took toward her, she only felt her resolve grow deeper within her. Something was now stirring in her heart, and she took a step forward against Van even as he came up against her. "You are not truth."

"Nineteen years old, and still just a child, Mystearica," Van shot back, and the two were now just a few feet apart, no longer moving. Van looked down at her, and she looked back evenly, calmly. "How can you possibly know what truth is in a place like this? How can you possibly know that you even exist in a place like this? How can you possibly know that you _are?_"

"I can see. I can think," Tear replied. "As long as my mind works, I know that I _am_, on some level. And as long as I _am_, I know that I can get back to wherever I need to be."

"Just thinking is enough to exist?" Van laughed. "Nonsense. What if you existed in a total void, with not even your own body there?" Van looked around the expanse, the blackness almost shining along the features of his face. "If you existed in an absolute nothingness, there would be nothing for your mind to think _of._ If your mind can think of _nothing_, then it can't _think._ And if your mind couldn't _think_, then you could not _be_, by your own admission." Van frowned when a look of despair did not come across Tear's face. "Well? Don't you understand, yet? Just because you're here, thinking, isn't enough to let you exist. And if you can't know even that you _exist_, how can you know _truth?_"

"Don't try to play with my mind, phantom," Tear replied simply, not even gracing the illusion with the name of her brother, any longer. "I know this is a trick by Shadow. You can't confuse me."

"I don't have to confuse you," Van answered, drawing his sword. "If you won't listen, then I just have to strike you down where you stand."

Tear did not flinch. She was not scared. Van raised his sword and swung it diagonally, bringing it down on an angle to cleave through the hymnist's torso. She raised her arm to the side.

"This is just a game for Shadow," she said simply. "I don't want to play."

She caught the sword in her outstretched hand, stopping it from reaching her body. It did not cut her hand, but rather, when she squeezed, the blade shattered, turning, as though ash, into tiny pieces of darkness that scattered and disappeared into the eternal blackness. Van looked stunned, and the shattering effect went up the blade, to the hilt, to his own hand and proceeded up his arm to his body. It spread rapidly, and he disappeared into the black realm.

The world around her started to spin. How she could tell it was spinning, though everything was utter blackness around her, she did not know. She simply knew that it _was _spinning, and she was stationary in its centre. Then, suddenly, rips started appearing before her. She wanted to reach out, but was too wise and too wary to allow herself to do so. The rips started coming faster, golden in colour, until they formed a mass of windows, six in all.

The first was higher than the other five, and sat in the center. It showed her and her teammates, all of them laying on the floor, unconscious; in the centre was a triumphant-looking Shadow (again, she found it strange to _read _emotion in the face of a metal helm).

The other windows horrified her almost as much. In one, Natalia, recoiling from blows to her face and shins, staring at a slightly younger version of herself with an oddly, misplaced cruel look on her face. In another, Guy, standing dumbly and still, staring at what looked to be his beloved sister; his lip was quivering slightly, and Tear could almost feel the breaking feeling in his heart from through the window. Jade, in a rare sight of pure anger, spear in hand, chasing after what looked like him as a child; the child was holding a Tokunaga, and stabbing it with a scalpel, and Jade's face appeared both pained and more enraged with every lowering of the instrument. Anise, tears flowing freely from her angry face, riding atop Tokunaga, attacking and defending herself from a pair of twin Ions, each of which fighting with a skill and dexterity the late Fon Master had never known.

Luke, staring at himself as Tear had first known him, looking more shaken than she had ever seen him.

She did not hesitate to get to his side. She ran for the window that showed Luke, touched it gingerly with a hand as though testing it, and then threw herself through it with no hesitation, praying that her actions would lead her to the troubled replica.

_Wait for me, Luke!_

* * *

_AN: Six cliffs in one, in a sense! I believe, were this old and in black-and-white, I would insert a maniacal cackle here. ...ah, yes, this _is_ in black-and-while! I cackle!  
_


	9. Come Together

"Why the hell should I trust _you?_" other Luke screamed. "Just get the hell out of my way! _Havoc Strike!_"

"Luke...! I'm... I'm...!" he stumbled over the words, his Key raised to deflect the jumping strike to the side. The metals clanged against each other, and the illusion scowled. "I'm _you!_ I'm Luke fon Fabre!" Luke cried.

The other growled, bringing his sword down in a lateral, somewhat awkward slash. "You think I'll believe a stupid line like that? That's pathetic."

"You have to listen to me!" Luke cried, parrying the incoming slash and readying himself for the next. Luke was hesitant, now, to attack his other self. "Mas... Van is lying to you! You can't trust him, he's going to use you to destroy Akzeriuth!" Desperation was seeping into Luke's voice.

"_Liar!_" the other roared, pressing against Luke with renewed strength. "Master Van is the _only person _who understands me! Who accepts me, just for who I am!"

"He's not accepting you!" Luke argued back, parrying with such a fury that his other almost lost his grip on his sword. "He's just using you to mess with the Score!" Luke was shouting at himself almost as much as he was his other. To _think _he was once this naive! This _foolish!_

"What the hell are you talking about?" the illusion screamed back. "I don't understand what you're saying!"

"You don't have to understand!" Luke countered. "Just don't go to Akzeriuth!"

"I don't have a choice!" his other cried, about to use an arte when a sudden golden glow distracted him. The glow grew quickly from a slight pinprick to a brilliant sphere, which remained stationary, hovering, even after a woman jumped out of it.

"You always have a choice, you idiot," Tear admonished the other, leaping to solid, though imperceptible, ground. "You're just too stupid to realize it."

"Hey, now..." Luke muttered, but Tear gave him a warm smile to remind him he'd changed from the person they were looking at, now. She wasn't addressing him.

"_Tear?_" the other cried, drawing away from Luke for a minute, holding his sword defensively against the two of them. "What the hell are you doing here? Who's this?"

"Luke," Tear said, looking at her short-haired companion, "Shadow's thrown everyone into an illusion like this. Everyone's facing something from their own past. You have to get free of this!" Her eyes carried a sliver of hope.

Luke winced. "How am I supposed to do that?"

"Stop calling him 'Luke!' _I'm _Luke!"

Tear ignored the illusion. "Maybe you have to let go of the part of your past that's holding you here."

"Stop calling me 'the past!'"

"Shut up, Luke," Tear admonished the illusion.

"I didn't say anything," the real Luke replied. Tear automatically raised a hand to her temple, as though massaging Luke's words away. "Oh, right. Sorry," Luke added somewhat sheepishly.

"Never mind," Tear sighed. "At any rate, I don't think you have to fight this version of yourself. You just have to let go of what you did, once and for all."

The illusion cried out, jumping forward at Luke. "Stop talking about things without including me, damn it!"

Luke raised the Key and directed the blade to the side, then kicked at his other self to knock him away. "Was I really like this?"

"Painfully so."

Luke frowned, dropping the topic. "Tear, this doesn't make any sense!" He lowered his gaze, gripping the Key tighter as he spoke, as though relying upon the pressure to force the words out of himself. "I know what I did at Akzeriuth. I know I did something wrong. And I know I'll never make up for it, but as long as I keep trying..."

"That's why you're still here, you idiot," Tear smiled. Her nickname of sorts kept bringing itself up, even here. "If you remember it every day and help people _just because _you feel guilty, then you'll never be free of it." Her gaze softened, an impressive feat considering it wasn't very stern to begin with, and the illusion Luke slowly began to fade away. "When you were trying to make up for Akzeriuth every day, you were really kind to everyone... But you've changed and grown since then. I don't think you have to spend every moment trying to make up for it, anymore. If you just match that kindness daily, but do it just for the sake of being a good person and not to keep yourself from feeling guilty, then I think that will be enough."

Luke balanced warily on his feet, but noticed his other fading faster. "I... that's enough?"

"Everyone has forgiven you but _you, _Luke," Tear informed him, grinning slightly out of love.

"...okay," Luke said. "I might not be able to let go of it all right away, Tear, but I will. Eventually." He wavered on his feet for a moment, as though hesitating to move, but eventually grabbed Tear in a warm hug. "And you'll... watch me for that, again... right?"

"Idiot," Tear said gently into his shoulder. "I never _stopped _watching you..."

The illusion finally dissipated into nothingness, the other Luke seemingly more shocked at watching a version of himself hugging the "cold chick" than he was at his own body disappearing. Tear and Luke broke apart, and she led the way back to the hovering, golden sphere. The two disappeared into the gold, and the ethereal portal afterward curled into itself, vanishing in a swirl of shining yellow and leaving behind it a forgotten black expanse.

They arrived back the area with all the windows, though the one that had led to Luke's expanse faded into nothingness after they stepped out of it. Five windows remained: one each to Anise, Guy, Natalia, Jade and the last back to Shadow in the garden. The window to Shadow, which had previously been floating too high overhead to reach, was now back down on the level of the other windows, within reach and easily accessible. Tear studied the windows closely.

"It looks like everyone's held pretty badly within the trap, still," she commented, peering into Anise's window. "Oh, poor Anise..." she whispered softly.

"We have trouble!" Luke cried, looking at Shadow in the garden. Tear rushed over to look, and saw that Shadow had drawn a wicked stiletto blade from a sheath previously hidden behind its back beneath its cape. It was advancing on Natalia's body, knife in hand, purposefully preparing to puncture the prone princess in a pressure point.

Tear gasped. "If Shadow kills our _bodies_... will we die here, too?"

"Even if we don't, we'll never be able to get back!" Luke muttered. "I'm going back there to hold him off!"

"Luke!" Tear cried. "_Alone?!_"

"We don't have a choice!" he replied quickly. "If I don't interrupt him now, he'll take everyone out before we can get back on our feet! But if I can stop him ahead of time..."

"...all right," Tear nodded, admitting he had a point. "But _be careful_. You'd better be standing when I come back with the others. I'll be there as quickly as I can."

"Don't worry," Luke said, giving her a final grin. "I'm not ready to die, yet." And he slipped through the window resolutely.

"It's about time I heard you say that," Tear muttered to herself, jumping through the window that lead to Anise's expanse

* * *

"So come and see what righteous judgment can be!" 

"_I'll kill you bastards!_" Anise screamed, darting forward with a cold fury that the real Ion never knew she could possess, blinking back tears of rage. The arms of Tokunaga swung wildly, his body swinging in ever-quickening turns, but Anise did not lose her grip on the doll. Her hands were clenched tightly upon the eerie, stuffed piece of fontech, refusing to release their diminutive grip until the two Ions- no, the two _Syncs_, she would tell herself, or else she'd never have the heart to kill them- were destroyed.

Unfortunately, the twin Ions had much different plans, and as Anise's attacks grew more and more fevered, the pair began to come back with more precisely tandem attacks. They would kick in unison, one high and one low, and Tokunaga would take the shot in the leg while Anise would barely duck under the shot coming at her forehead. Then came the unified punches, which Tokunaga would parry with his massive arms, but was too slow to avoid the follow up short kicks to his midsection, causing the doll to fall back several feet.

"Get away!" Anise shouted, realizing her foes were too close. "_Dual Punishment!_" she went into a quick spin with Tokunaga's arms outstretched, leaving trails of claw scratch lines across the Ions' torsos, but the twin illusions were none the worse for the wear.

"We couldn't have said it better ourselves," the first Ion smirked cruelly, Sync's voice ringing in Anise's ears.

The other chimed in, "We'll show you what _Dual Punishment _really is!" They went off again in synchronized attacks, forcing Anise back again as Tokunaga struggled to keep up.

"You two... _screw off!_" Anise screeched as Tokunaga took a heavy hit and she ended up falling backwards off the doll. A burst of golden light erupted nearby, startling the twin Ions momentarily.

"_Anise!_" Tear cried as she leaped from it. The hymnist landed gracefully on the black ground at the girl's side. "Are you all right?"

"T...Tear!" Anise cried, looking away so as not to let the young woman see her cry. "I'm fine, I'm fine! Don't worry about me. It's just these two... They're strong, that's all!"

The Ions cut her off, charging at them. Tear stood up over the girl, protectively. The second Ion delivered a blazingly fast roundhouse at her, but to Anise's shock, it went right through her body. The two Ions also fell back, astonished.

"They can't hurt me because they're painful memories of _your _past, Anise. They're meant to hurt you," Tear informed her. "So it will have to be you that defeats them."

"But..." Anise whimpered quietly, "how? How do I stop them? Everything I tried didn't work..."

"You can't beat them by attacking their bodies," Tear advised her, sagely smiling down. "They're a part of your past."

Anise blinked, a few lingering unshed tears now shaken loose from her eyes. "So I have to... let go of Ion?"

"No, that's not what I mean," Tear replied, resting a hand gently on the Fon Master's shoulder and squeezing slightly. "None of us will ever let go of Ion. You need to be able to let go of what you did for Mohs."

The first Ion sneered with Sync's voice. "She'll never be able to do that. She wants my forgiveness too badly."

The other one said angrily in Ion's voice, "It's too bad you had to be so sneaky, Anise. I would have helped you, you know. We could have gotten through it together, but you just weren't prepared to look for alternatives... my cherished."

Anise trembled, but Tear shook her, asking, "Do you really think _Ion _would say that to you? He knew what had happened when he read the Score in Mount Zaleho and he _still_ forgave you when he died."

"Tear..." Anise whispered, the name playing at her lips as though trying to soak up all the emotion in Anise's body before it left her. "You're right... aren't you? I can't get Ion's forgiveness from a couple of fake illusions... he already gave it to me!" And when she'd finished speaking, one of the Ions vanished, immediately sucked into the black oblivion.

"Right," Tear agreed. "But can you forgive yourself?"

"Yeah...yeah, I think I can!" Anise smiled. "I don't think I'll be able to all in one go, but I think that's what Ion would have wanted, and so that's what I'm gonna do!"

"Don't speak about what I wanted!" the illusion yelped in Ion's voice as his body began to fade away. "I'll never forgive you, Anise! I'll never let you forget that you killed me!"

"I don't care about killing you!" Anise shouted back. "I care that I killed Ion! Not some phony, false, pretend illusion of my own memories! If you don't vanish right now, I swear I'll beat the snot out of you with Tokunaga!" Ion was not scared by the threat, but rather of the girl's perseverance. He opened his mouth to speak, but her resolve was final, and he didn't have time to draw breath before he'd faded into the darkness, as well.

"Good work, Anise," Tear complimented her, watching as the girl shrunk Tokunaga back down to size and picked the doll up.

"This was all Shadow's doing, wasn't it?" she growled lowly.

"Luke's already back in the garden, keeping it from attacking our physical bodies," Tear said. "This seems to be some kind of mental realm, where our minds stay trapped so Shadow can kill us while we're defenseless."

"That coward!" Anise screamed. "Let's get back there and finish this!"

"Good idea," Tear agreed, and the two hopped into the golden, shimmering window that led back to the nexus room. Anise's expanse folded in upon itself once they'd left, and the girl felt a little more lighthearted when it was finally behind her. The two set down lightly in the new room, and no sooner had their heels come to rest than the window that brought them there vanished into the darkness. "Two down," Tear sighed. "Just Natalia, Jade and Guy to go."

"Colonel...!" Anise gasped, shocked to find the normally reserved and sly Jade running all-out, a horribly angry expression on his face and spear clenched in his hand. "I can't believe Shadow tricked you like this, too..." An unreadable expression filled Anise's face, but Tear got the feeling that she had just grown up a little. The emotion, however, did not stop her resolve. "Tear, I'm going after him."

"Wait a moment, Anise," Tear advised, and she peered back to the garden to see how the fight was progressing. Surprisingly, Luke was still on his feet, and seemed no worse for the wear except for a long gash along his back, but it looked more superficial than anything. He and Shadow were going blow-for-blow, but neither was succeeding in doing significant damage. Shadow's stiletto was too short to get to Luke past his parries with the range of his Key, yet its own armour was too thick for Luke to do anything but superficial cuts. The battle seemed like it would require several sixth-fonon artes before Shadow could really be taken down, but Luke was still too tired from his own mental battle in the Field to come at him with repeated Light Spear Cannons, let alone the fact that that particular arte would leave his back exposed for a moment to a very deadly stiletto knife.

Regardless, however, Luke was still doing all right. Tear nodded to Anise to go ahead to Jade, knowing that they had time to try and break through to the others before they had to return. "I'll be back soon!" Anise promised, and she jumped to Jade's expanse, disappearing in a golden flash.

This left Tear stuck between Natalia and Guy. Tear turned from the garden window, and quickly jumped into Natalia's. Of anyone left that could reach Guy, it would be Natalia, not herself, that had the best chance. His phobia would kick in against herself without a moment's hesitation, but Natalia could at least bypass that. Once she freed Natalia, the others would take care of themselves; she could get back to Luke.

Of course, she had to reach Natalia, first.

* * *

_He's never been anything but kind to me_, she thought_, and this is what I was like? ...how did the others tolerate me...? _Natalia's thoughts were a terrific distraction, and every slap from her double stung her more as she began to think that she _deserved _the attacks. Her noble soul would not let her be anything but horrified at herself; every time her other slapped, Natalia reeled from both the blow and from feeling the pain that she was once a person that would do something like that. 

But Natalia was never one to accept a punishment without rising to question it, and so she again grabbed her foe's wrists as they came in at her, and held them tightly, this time watching for any surprise kicks that would come for her shins. "Stop this!" she finally demanded.

" Do not command your princess!" she shouted back. "Your princess is not a servant!"

"The princess is a servant to _the people!_"

The double froze for a moment. "...my father told me that. How did you...?"

"I'm you, aren't I?" Natalia said, a slow smile spreading across her face. "I think I understand, now. I have to accept you, don't I? I have to accept..._ me_, as I was, do I not?"

"Silence! How do you know it is not I who has to accept you?" her other cried.

"Perhaps we must accept each other."

The other stood in silence for a moment. "How am I to trust you? Anyone could claim these things," she said at length.

"I know things about you no other person could possibly know," Natalia said quietly.

"Such as what?" the illusion seemed almost afraid to ask.

Natalia drew a deep breath, closing her eyes as though looking for internal support to speak, which, in a sense, she was. "...someday, when we're grown up, let's change this country. Change it so that no one has to be poor. Change it so that war never happens."

Her other's expression turned to shock, then softened reflectively. "Let's work... for the rest of our lives, to change this country... together," she finished sincerely. There was silence between the two for a moment, and then the other said, "How?"

"I told you," Natalia replied simply. "I'm you."

The other nodded, not appearing particularly surprised when she felt her body begin to disappear. "And I, you."

"I accept that I was once mean to those beneath me... even to those who were nothing but kind to me," Natalia said, her voice confident. "But I have changed. I will treat all my citizens with love from here on."

"Don't forget," her other whispered as her body finally faded.

Natalia's hands closed on empty air. "I shall not." Suddenly, off to her left, a golden glow appeared, and from it, Tear floated down to the imperceptible ground. "Tear?"

"Natalia!" Tear called, concerned at first but slowly becoming more calm as she realized that only one figure was standing in the expanse.

"Tear?" Natalia blinked. "Did you deal with an image of yourself, too?"

Tear paused for a moment before stuttering, "N... yes. I've got it under control, though."

"Can we get back, then? Through here?" Natalia asked, eying the golden window warily. She began to walk over to it, standing beside Tear as she studied the window.

"Yes, through here," Tear repeated. "Luke's already free, distracting Shadow. Anise is free and helping Jade, and I came here to help you."

"Thank you," the princess replied earnestly, hesitating a moment before asking, "and... how is Guy?"

"Still caught. I think you're the only one that can reach him," Tear said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "I'll go back to help Luke, now. You get Guy." The princess only nodded as the two women went through the golden window, signaling the destruction of Natalia's expanse.

* * *

"_Light Spear Cannon!_" 

The attack bit into Shadow, forcing the sentience back several paces. It appeared more annoyed than wounded, however, and advanced on Luke menacingly. The sentience brought the knife down in a quick slice, and a whip of first fonons erupted from it, cracking at Luke. The latter raised the Key in a hasty parry, but he was growing so tired from fighting the sentience in a duel and from gathering sixth fonons for his Light Spear Cannon that he wasn't able to hold his ground against it. It knocked him back several feet, and he dropped, fatigued, to one knee.

"You would have been better to have let yourself perish in the Fracture Field, boy," Shadow growled lowly, its deep voice ringing throughout the garden. "What do you hope to accomplish by yourself?" Suddenly, a heavy blow collided against the back of Shadow's helm (head?), forcing the sentience forward a step.

Tear stepped back, returning her staff to a defensive stance. "Who said he was fighting by himself?"

* * *

_Stab. Scream. Stab. Scream._

"...Anise...!" Jade cried, running after his other (or former) self with a vengeance, spear in hand, legs pumping as furiously as he could make them. He knew, in the back of his head, that harming his former self, even if it was just a mental representation of himself, might harm his own mind in a realm as twisted as this, but so, too, was he suffering severe mental trauma from hearing Anise's voice cry out in shrieking pain, over and over again.

Perhaps he didn't have to hurt his other, though... if he could only find some way to steal the Tokunaga from his arms, then he wouldn't have to hear Anise screeching, anymore. Then he could focus on finding a way out. Such was the mental strength of the Malkuth soldier that even in such a time of mental duress, he could still think rationally.

_Be careful_, he cautioned himself. _Absolutely _nothing _is real in this realm. Anything could come from anywhere at any time._

"Oh, me," the other called to Jade, dancing wickedly out of arm's reach, "would you mind lighting this doll aflame for you? It might help us get to the secrets inside this doll, sooner. The skin is just too tough to rip, right now."

Jade dropped his angry expression, unsummoned his spear and held his hand out. "Certainly. I'm rather curious, myself." He smiled his usual Jade grin. "May I see the doll, me?"

"Oh?" his former blinked. "You seem much more cooperative, now."

Jade shrugged. "I simply don't have the time to chase myself all day. If we could get this over with, I'm sure it would be much more beneficial to each of me."

"Be my guest," the other said, a rather eerie grin plastered on his face as he threw the creepy doll out for his elder to catch. "Don't toast it too much, now. If you incinerate it, everything inside will be too scarred to analyze." He suddenly snapped, as though an idea went off in his head. "Why don't you use that girl's scream to test when the thing is ready to be ripped open? When it gets high in pitch and fevered, we should be able to judge when to stop."

"If it's all right with you, I'd rather not begin at all," Jade said smoothly, holding the Tokunaga behind his body and out of sight from his miniature self. It was the strangest thing: since Tokunaga had stopped being stabbed, the fury in his head had subsided remarkably. His mind felt clearer, as well. It felt as though he had been attacked mentally and hadn't noticed, but the attack had since ceased, leaving his brain clear. He did, however, take the time to hold his forehead discouragingly in a single hand, sighing, "To think I came from someone like you."

"What's wrong with me?" his other whined. "Have you grown so spineless that you're too scared to analyze a _doll?_"

"If you're looking for an emotional weak spot, I'm afraid you're not going to find one," Jade said levelly. "You threw me off when I first arrived, I'll admit, but I've wised up to all of your tricks."

"That's such a shame," the other replied, bringing his left arm across his body to deal with an itch behind his right shoulder. "You know, I didn't really expect to be able to trick you with pain from your past," he admitted, scratching harder. "That's why I took other precautions to use against you."

"I'm afraid I won't be giving them time to work," Jade replied, stepping away from the illusion slowly, realizing suddenly that his other had stopped liberally playing with pronouns.

"That's much too bad," the illusionary Jade smirked. "And here I was, wanting to show you a... I don't know... _oh_... _mighty explosion_." Jade cursed himself under his breath, recognizing the arte's preamble and realizing that his other self had his arm across his body in his own casting position, more than ready to cast. "_Energy Blast!_"

Jade jumped back just as a shining golden light began to shine from off in the distance, but he didn't have time to focus on that right now. He twisted his body upon landing, hoping to dodge the arte, but the boy wasn't aiming for _him_. The Energy Blast went off targeting Tokunaga, and from the instant the doll was struck, two things happened. Firstly, Anise's wail again filled the black expanse, ringing out loudly and clearly. Second, in the same _instant _the doll was initially struck, Jade dropped to his knees, one hand clutching his forehead, for his mind felt like it was on fire. He struggled to look up at the illusion to prepare himself for a follow-up attack, but his vision was swimming too much for him to react if an attack was forthcoming.

As the wail died off, Jade suddenly felt two things: a strange sensation within his mind and a pair of slight hands steadily holding him. "Colonel?"

The swimming in Jade's mind tapered off a little, and he managed to catch a glimpse of Anise, looking extremely concerned, gripping his arm tightly as though trying to rouse him from a nightmare. Off in the distance, a stable golden sphere had formed. Jade relaxed slightly, for a moment feeling that help had arrived. But then...

_A third illusion!_ Jade's mind snapped at him, and the colonel roused himself instantly, leaping away from the girl in a mighty jump back and observing her, the doll and himself with a keen eye.

"Colonel?" Anise gasped. "Don't move so quickly, you don't look very good!"

"I'm fine," Jade said lowly. "I would be even better if I knew what the blazes just happened to me." He looked heavily at his other.

"Ah," the illusion smiled, making a very overly-elaborate bow to him. "That would be me, I'm afraid. You see, since I didn't think a mental trick from your past would work on you for long, I took a slightly different precaution."

Anise bit her lip. "What did you do?"

"You haven't figured it out, yet?" the illusion smiled.

"You linked my mind to the Tokunaga fake?" Jade asked, coming into realization.

"Everything you see in here is linked to you in some way," the illusion smirked darkly, and Jade had to wonder why his other self didn't appear outright against explaining. Perhaps he only developed that particular dislike later in life... "I am linked to your past. The Tokunaga is linked to your present."

"Oh?" Anise batted her eyelashes. "Does that mean..."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Jade couldn't stop himself from quipping.

"Boo..."

"If the Tokunaga is linked to my own mind, why did you give it to me?" Jade asked, curious.

"An experiment," the illusion shrugged. "I was curious to see if I could make you severely wound yourself. It's a shame it didn't work," the former smiled. "I was so looking forward to analyzing your corpse. Oh, well. At least," he said, running, "I can still take it back and do it myself!"

The illusion made a sudden move to reach for Tokunaga, but Jade was closer and quicker, and he picked the doll up, protectively. It was a little worn from the Energy Blast, which Jade assumed related to that particular block he felt in his head. It didn't feel major, only like he'd forgotten something.

Anise took the opportunity to move in front of Jade and pose worriedly. "Colonel, we don't have time to deal with this faker, anymore!" she exclaimed. "Luke's holding off Shadow alone. We have to hurry!"

"I'm afraid," Jade sighed, holding the Tokunaga away from Anise, "that I'm not willing to listen to _any _illusions I find in this expanse, be it a copy of myself or you, Anise."

"What?" the girl nearly squeaked. "I'm not an illusion!"

"I don't see any reason to believe otherwise," Jade replied, stoic. The illusion began to laugh, but Jade ignored it.

"Colonel!" Anise raised her voice, annoyed. "If I were an illusion, why would I be trying to get you out of this place and back to Shadow? Luke's in _danger_, and if you stay here, so are you!"

"Following you may end up placing me in an even more dangerous place," Jade pointed out.

"Fine!" Anise huffed, hands positioned dangerously on her hips. "But even if death is waiting no matter what you do, I didn't think it was like you to sit around when you could at least move and try to accomplish something!"

Jade, surprisingly, found himself speechless for the second time in a few minutes. It, indeed, _wasn't _like him to sit around when a course of action could be taken. And what the illusion had said to him... something about no one else being worth his time... the details of that memory were strangely fuzzy, but perhaps to escape the illusion, he would have to prove that there _was _someone worth his time? And if so, wouldn't Anise, standing right here... if he could just show that he _trusted_ her... Wouldn't _trust _mean, definitively, that there was something worth his time?

"...perhaps you're right," he said quietly, at length. Very faintly, the illusion began to fade. "I suppose it _wouldn't _do for me to stand around all day."

"Colonel!" Anise breathed, realizing that she'd actually gotten through to the cold man. He still looked apprehensive, however, as though trying to decide if his next move was worth the risk.

Suddenly, Jade held Tokunaga out for Anise. "Well, I suppose if I'm going to die from this, it'd be better to do it sooner rather than later." His illusion suddenly groaned, disappearing faster. "I'll trust you with this for the moment, Anise. Prove to me you aren't false."

"Colonel..." Anise said again, as though the title were the only thing she could bring herself to utter. She moved to take the doll with a shaking hand, but the second she touched the copy of her treasured item, both he and the illusion disappeared, a trace wisp of colour lingering for a moment, but fading shortly after.

"...I'm glad that's over," the colonel admitted aloud. "Come, Anise. We should return to the garden."

Anise followed him to the golden window, but stopped him before they entered. "Wait... Colonel! Why was he hurting _you _with _Tokunaga?_ What was the deal with that?"

Jade lifted a hand to his glasses and smiled, apparently absorbed in the window. "So this takes us back to the garden? Fascinating." Jade stepped through the window, not letting the scowl he was feeling show on his visage. Something in his mind did not feel _right_, and it was worrying him that he could not place exactly what it was.

"_Colonel!_" Anise cried as he stepped through, scowling at his lack of reply. She did allow a brief smile to grow on her face (he had trusted her _that much!_ There was hope, yet...), but had the playful scowl back in place by the time they'd arrived at the window room. Jade, however, had already rejoined the battle with Shadow by the time she popped back into the expanse with the windows, and so she hurriedly jumped back to the garden, not even watching as the window to Jade's expanse collapsed shut.

* * *

"You come full circle, back to your life in Hod." 

"...in... Hod..."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"...I... I..."

"Think about it, Gailardia," Mary whispered, leaning into Guy's ear. "Think about how wonderful your life was in Hod. With me."

Guy shook his head slowly, as though hoping his memories could be shaken away, but they clung to him too tightly. "I _do _want that... but that can't be my life anymore." His fists tightened. "That's not my life anymore. You're not part of my life anymore."

"I'm right here!" Mary cried, almost desperately. "And as long as I'm _right here_, aren't I part of your life? Your memories are part of an unreachable past. I am the tangible present. Aren't I more _real _than your memories?"

"But you're not!" Guy exclaimed, trying feebly to pull back. "Mary lives on in my memories!"

"Why can't I live on _here?_" Mary countered. "_Look _at me, Gailardia! I'm alive! I'm real!" She shifted behind him, and embraced him from behind. Guy shivered, but could not, despite his phobia, bring himself to move away. Lowly, she murmured, "Why can't we be real together?"

A golden light began to form in the distance, but Guy was only dimly aware of it. "We are... real...?" He blinked a few times. The golden light was growing strong, and it hurt his eyes to look at it, at first, but when a figure began to descend from it, he felt almost _drawn _toward the illumination. "I'm..."

"Stay with me, Gailardia," she requested softly. "Let me stay with _you_."

"Guy!" His head jerked up, more suddenly that he felt he could move, upon hearing Natalia call his name. "Guy, get away from her!"

"N-Natalia?" Guy blinked furiously, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. "My... my sister, Mary, you've never met her, right?" Guy slowly began to stand up, to better introduce her to the illusion. "Come here, say hello..."

"Guy, listen to me," Natalia said slowly, running up to him and trying to get him to look her in the eye. His gaze was distracted and cloudy, however. "This is not real. What you're seeing is a trick by Shadow." She moved to him, knowing he wouldn't pull away, and placed hands on his arms so that he couldn't turn away from her. "I know you loved your sister," she said soothingly, "but this isn't her. She's not real."

Guy's eyes widened ever so slightly, and he seemed on the tip of saying something, but Mary suddenly burst, "She's lying! Look at me! I'm real!" She suddenly moved in front of Guy, jostling with Natalia to be immediately in front of him. "Look! If you perceive everything about me, Gailardia, then I'm _real _to _you!_ That's all that matters, isn't it?"

"No!" Natalia screamed, pushing back against the illusion. "Guy, it does not matter if she's real if she is-"

The illusion cut her off, clamping a hand over her mouth and pushing her further to the side. "What matters more than being real?" she cried suddenly, struggling to push Natalia away. Guy was looking distraught, as though unable to determine which woman he should side with. They moved back and forth before him, neither willing to give positioning to the other. "Name me, Gailardia! Accept me! And you and I shall live as a tribute to Hod, to our glorious homeland! Make me _real!_"

"Guy!" Natalia said loudly as she ripped the other's hand from her mouth. "It matters not if she is _real _if she is not _true!_"

"True?" Guy suddenly gasped, immediately dazed and captivated by the princess.

"_Yes_," she said, her relief almost tangible. "You can hold any idea or belief you want... but if it's not _true_, then you're just deceiving yourself. You are merely creating a world of chaos to live in."

"Name the things you find in the chaos, Gailardia," Mary said desperately, "and you can make sense of even that! It can be real! It... it can be _true!_"

"No, it cannot!" Natalia declared, and without warning, she slapped Mary hard across the face, and the illusion fell against the black ground painfully. Guy found himself frozen to the spot, watching his sister lift herself up. "Guy, I know how much you love your sister," Natalia said quickly, speaking to him before the illusion could get back in her way. "If that were your sister, _really _your sister, wouldn't you be naturally angry right now? Wouldn't you instinctively have stopped me? Have _hit me?_"

"N-Natalia," Guy stuttered again. "I... wouldn't hit you..." Slowly, the illusion began to fade away into the blackness.

"You would if I attacked you sister," Natalia said confidently, "but I think, deep down, you know that this illusion is not your sister."

"...'My sister and my homeland live on only in my memories.' Didn't I say that once?" Guy asked, averting his gaze from her eyes. The illusion faded faster, and the slow shaking that had been running through Guy's body similarly vanished.

The illusion reached out to him with a quaking, disappearing hand. "Gailardia... Name me! Name me your sister, and this world will all make sense! Everything..."

"I'll name you, all right!" Guy shouted back, now looking her in the eye, unafraid of being drawn back into the emotion so he knew the illusion could stir in him. It was as though, with Natalia standing beside him, his courage in the black world had grown tenfold. "But I'm not naming you my sister! I won't... _disgrace _her to that level by playing your twisted game anymore. I'm calling you for what you are: a disgusting _doppelganger_." And Mary finally vanished entirely, slipping into the blackness, lost to the world.

Guy's face was a picture of rage, and Natalia was almost scared to try and soothe him. With caution thrown to the wind, she pulled up beside him and laid a careful hand on his arm. "...how do you feel?"

Guy didn't look at her, instead choosing to study the glowing window. He eventually rasped out, "I'm fine. Will this take us-"

"Guy," Natalia said forcefully, though it was only coming from care and not annoyance. "You're still trembling a little. We don't have to move on, yet. You're just be a liability if you're too distracted to focus on Shadow, and that's whom we are going back to battle with."

"Oh, I'm _sorry_," Guy couldn't stop himself from biting, his face still twisted. "I'm just a _liability?_"

"_Guy!_" Natalia gasped, her hand up at her mouth in surprised. "I didn't mean it like that."

A light seemed to go on in Guy's head and his face softened as he realized just how unlike himself he was behaving. "...I know. ...I'm sorry, Natalia. I didn't mean to... it's just..."

"It's okay," she replied softly. "I understand how hard that must have been on you. It's all right..."

"I'm sorry," he said again, louder and more confident this time. "I wouldn't have snapped on you if..."

"...you must have really loved your sister, Guy, I can see that," she smiled, a little sadly. "I can't blame you for feeling as confused as you do."

"...yeah. But we don't have time to worry about the past right now, do we?" he sighed. "I'm okay now. Thanks. Let's move on."

"Yes, let's. Just be careful," Natalia requested, and Guy just nodded and walked with her through the window. They were brought into the window room as Guy's expanse collapsed in their wake, and only one window remained, which led directly back to the duel with Shadow. The two crossed over, and the Fracture Field finally collapsed. The team was once again whole.

* * *

_Moments ago..._

"This is the best strength you have to come against me with?" Shadow grinned through a solid metal helm. "A feeble staff and a broken warrior?" Luke stumbled to his feet, feeling slightly stronger with Tear now back to help him again.

"The pieces of a broken object can still become sharper and more dangerous, Shadow," Tear pointed out, circling the sentience slowly to come beside Luke.

"...I'm not broken!" Luke muttered indignantly, but Tear ignored him, being too focused on Shadow.

"I am not a normal opponent, fools," Shadow boasted. "I am the great sentience of first fonons. I am the darkness, itself! I am-"

"Rather a nuisance," Jade sighed as he got to his feet, arm raised up into the air with an arte already prepared from when he lay, feigning unconsciousness, on the ground. "_Absolute!_" Great spires of ice erupted from the ground, denting Shadow's armour and pinning the sentience as a large glacier crushed it from above. The ice shattered painfully on contact, leaving Shadow in the middle of a frigid explosion.

"Jade!" Tear exclaimed happily, seeing her comrade up and moving. "Does this mean Anise found you?"

"So she did," the colonel answered with a faint smile on his lips, shrugging. "I suppose sending her after me was your idea?"

Luke actually laughed. "Don't get too angry at her. It worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, I'm a genius!" Anise shouted happily as Tokunaga seemed to spring to life from out of nowhere and come bearing down on a chilled, stunned Shadow. "_Shadow Raid!_" Tokunaga turned into a spinning whirlwind of death, finishing with a paw that was attempting to gut the sentience, but couldn't get through its tough armour. When the gutting attempt failed to be anything but a punch, Shadow brought a wicked arm down in a violent swing against the side of Tokunaga's head, sending the doll and girl flying. They landed rather heavily some distance away, but thankfully Tokunaga broke the Fon Master's fall.

"Anise!" Luke cried out, but she shouted back that she was okay, so Luke forced his tired body into motion and charged into Shadow. Tear began to cast as Luke's Key and Shadow's stiletto rang off against each other noisily. Anise got to her feet, and Jade started to cast while Luke kept the sentience distracted.

Luke came in swinging vertically, but Shadow easily parried the blow even with his significantly smaller weapon and twisted in to catch Luke under the jaw with its hard elbow. Luke's vision turned blinding white for a moment, and he instinctively jumped back, narrowly (though he didn't know it) dodging the stiletto which was streaming toward his chest.

"O violent torrent," Jade chanted. "_Splash!_" The raging waters from the quick spell materialized in spheres above Shadow, and the orbs immediately emptied themselves out in a rush above the sentience, giving Luke time to retreat and regroup.

Shadow was not to be taken lightly, however. Raising its stiletto, it called, "_Guardian!_" and the water ran off the fonic shield mostly harmlessly, only residual damage from pressure breaking through. Jade looked strangely angry with himself, but Luke wasn't focused enough to ask about it. From the corner of its imperceptible eye, Shadow caught sight of Anise perched atop Tokunaga, spinning her staff evenly. "My apologies, Fon Master! _Bloody Howling!_"

Anise nearly fell off Tokunaga just from witnessing Shadow's incredible casting time. Faster than she could react, the arte enclosed her and began slamming against every part of her body with first fonons. She thought she was about to lose consciousness, but in the distance, she heard a familiar sound ringing across the garden.

"_Va Rei Zue Toue Neu Toue Ryuo Toue Kuroa_..." Anise suddenly felt her mental focus become much sharper, and her major wounds closed themselves up, healed nicely. Tear settled her feet back on the ground from her Holy Song.

"There are very few who sing in battle to that level of effect," Shadow commented. "Somewhat impressive, child."

"I'm not here for your flattery," Tear said coolly. "You're in my garden, hurting my friends. If you won't leave, I'll force you to."

"Yes, yes," Shadow sighed deeply. "We've already had the banter." It ran at Tear, closing the distance between the two with shockening speed. The stiletto in its hand gleamed darkly against the light from the Orb, and Tear's muscles were as tense as she could make them, preparing for a fast dodge.

She never had the chance to. The attack never came, for a perfectly positioned arrow flew across Shadow's path, cutting the sentience off and forcing it to a stop while Natalia drew a second arrow. Apparently unsurprised at the intrusion, Shadow changed its course and ran at the archer. Natalia fired a shot, and it would have struck Shadow had the sentience not deflected the arrowhead with the tiny blade of the stiletto. Shadow came up to the princess, and at five feet away, drew back its blade, and sliced forward with horrendously frightening momentum.

A moment later, the stiletto was flying to a corner of the garden, where it stuck into the ground, blade embedded in the dirt. Shadow pulled back, as it was now face-to-face with an apparently very enraged Guy, sword fresh off a parry and hungry for more. Shadow released a blast of first fonons, but it did little more than send Guy and Natalia back a few feet, buying itself time to regroup.

Shadow landed in the centre of the garden beside Van's gravestone, surrounded on all sides by the party. "Give up," Tear asked again. "You can't win this anymore."

The sentience grabbed the hilt it had first used to create the Fracture Field. "There will be no surrender, today, hymnist," it spoke lowly, darkly. "If you insist upon my death... I will rend you _limb from limb!_" It drew the hilt in a large swinging motion, and a large glowing blade appeared from the end, dark, deep purple and slightly longer than Luke's Key. Sparing no time, Shadow chose a direction and threw itself into the fray. Jade was the first one in his way.

Jade summoned his spear, and stood prepared to block Shadow's blade. The sentience faked moving low, then leaped high, hoping to catch Jade unprotected on the top. Jade was too fast, however, and parried the attack successfully from above. Shadow landed behind Jade, but the colonel was already turned around and ready for the next exchange, so Shadow moved on to Anise, who was already tired and sore from the Bloody Howling arte it had struck her with.

Shadow again came in low and faked high, but Anise was just as prepared, having watching the colonel's moves carefully. Tokunaga shuffled left, evading the incoming slash, and caught Shadow beneath his guard, delivering a quick uppercut that spun the sentience around in the air. Shadow, however, went with the spin, landed on its feet, and swung out with a sudden slash. As it attacked, its sword glowed with an surge of first fonons, and the fonists in the group felt an impossibly large concentration of fonons spilling out from the blade. Anise managed to dive out of the way, but not completely. Tokunaga hit the ground, cut in two at a very specific point. His tail flopped on the ground uselessly.

"..._Tokunaga!_" Anise shrieked, watching the tail rest against the ground. In concern, she immediately leaped off, hoping that by keeping Tokunaga still, no more stuffing or fontech would slip out of the gaping hole than was absolutely necessary.

"Anise, get over here, _now!_" Jade ordered, and it was with reluctance (but not too much, as Shadow was still hovering right over her) that she dropped the doll and ran away. Trying to move Tokunaga right now could let too much stuffing and fontech fall out of the hole, making for a much trickier repair in the future. Jade stood cautiously in front of the girl, his spear raised in protection.

"Very cute," Shadow laughed. "Useless, but cute. I'll-"

"_Tiger Blade!_" Guy shouted from behind Shadow, the three-strike attack shredding the cape on its back. Shadow grunted and stepped forward, turning to swing at Guy.

"_Piercing Line!_" Natalia cried first, and the sentience stumbled as the arrow went clean through its left arm. Shadow gripped its sword in its right hand with a tighter grip as the arrow passed through.

"We're hurting it!" Guy cried. "Keep going!"

Shadow was at Guy's side in three steps. "If you insist," it muttered darkly. "_Break Touch_," it said, swinging. Its sword flashed darkly and ran through the swordsman. Guy's body shook, but didn't rip open. Guy was not bleeding, but rather _shaking_, surrounded by an aura of first fonons. Shadow grabbed him and, with a mighty toss, threw him at Natalia, and the two were suddenly overcome with a dark first fonon aura.

"Don't touch them!" Tear cried as Anise looked prepared to make a break for them. "It looks like that arte can spread by touch!" Natalia and Guy shook on the floor, in obvious pain.

"I can't move!" Guy cried. "Natalia!"

"I'm paralyzed!" she groaned, trying to stifle the pain that was running through her body. "Can't cast... Tear!"

"I'll try a hymn!" she called. "Cover me!" she added to Luke.

"A hymn won't help you, here, girl," Shadow laughed, and so sure was he that her hymns were useless that he focused on Anise and Jade, instead.

"Colonel!" the girl cried in warning, but Jade was concentrating too hard on the sentience to reply. Shadow suddenly moved to where Natalia and Guy lay shaking, and lifted them up.

"Anise, get out from behind me," Jade muttered lowly, so Shadow wouldn't hear. "Pull off to the side." She did so slowly, so as not to draw the sentience's attention.

Shadow moved quickly. He hoisted Natalia and Guy up and prepared to use both as projectiles, Guy for the second time. Their slow writhing in his hands did not affect his grip on them. Guy was used first. Shadow threw him sideways, so that he was sent spinning in Jade's direction. A sidestep to either side left the possibility that Guy would still clip him with his feet or head, so Jade elected to jump over him. However, Shadow seemed to have predicted that move and was already acting a step ahead, and Jade, now in mid-air, saw Natalia flying at him.

Being as gentle as possible (which wasn't very, in those conditions), Jade used his spear lengthwise to intercept Natalia in the air, lifting her over him. He managed to slide beneath her (and, in the process, slow her down enough that she came to rest on Guy. He might not have liked it, but she enjoyed the soft landing!), but his heart skipped a beat anyway.

While he'd been faked into leaping into the air, Shadow was now running at Anise off to the side!

Jade landed, quickly moving when his feet hit the ground. To think that he'd been outsmarted so easily! He kicked himself even harder than he had for forgetting that crucial information back in his own mind's expanse...

But he had no time to worry about that right now! He was still close enough to position himself between Shadow and Anise. He raised his spear against the sentience, preparing to parry his glowing sword.

The blade faded through the spear as though it weren't there. Shadow's Break Touch arte cut through Jade and Anise in one clean move, and each of them fell to the ground with an aura around them, neither cut or bleeding, but still shaking, in pain, and paralyzed. Jade actually swore.

Anise tried to reassure him. "Colonel, it's... it's... okay! Luke will..." (she stopped for a moment, a sharp groan of pain escaping her) "...get us out of this!" Jade just scowled at himself.

"Damn it!" Luke shouted. "Tear, that hymn..." But he saw she couldn't reply, as she was too deep in concentration for the hymn. Shadow, however, was now in no mood to play around, and as Tear began to close in on the end of the preparations for her Revitalize, it charged them. Luke saw the attack coming and pushed Tear out of the way, just in time for Shadow's swipe to miss, but also in time to disrupt the casting before the song could do anything. "Sorry, Tear!"

"It's okay, stay focused!" she said, already trying to get out of range of Shadow's attacks, but it was pursuing her relentlessly. Luke chased after Shadow and tried to lock blades, but Shadow's went right through even the Key, and Luke narrowly dodged the arte.

Tear thought she was at a safe distance, but Shadow was faster than she'd figured. He came charging in at her, and began to bring the sword down. Luke was just close and just fast enough that he got in from behind Shadow, under his arm, and pushed Tear out of the way. Tear was shoved out of range of the slash, but she had a full-on view of the blade swinging through Luke and the aura appearing around his body as the Break Touch connected. "_Luke!_" she screamed. He didn't have a chance to reply, as his teeth were clenched too tightly.

"_That's _all you have?" Shadow laughed, leaping back to the centre of the room and landing on Van's gravestone. The memorial piece shattered helplessly beneath its feet. "That's pitiful. That's discouraging. That's pathetic."

"_That's enough!_" Tear screamed, and a strong burst of fonons knocked the sentience back several feet, even with the large distance between them. Tear walked forward slowly, her eyes blazing with an inner fire, her blood pounding through her veins.

"The girl has some fight in her?" Shadow said, smirking despite its lack of facial features.

Tear concentrated solely on her casting, not bothering to waste her words. When she did speak, her words were precisely chosen. "O light that rains down on heaven and earth..." The room was immediately flooded with pure light fonons. Even Jade wasn't sure where she summoned them from; her concentration to find so many to use for a mystic arte was stunningly high, considering their surroundings. Shadow howled loudly as the sixth fonons began tearing through its armour. "...bring my enemies to their destined annihilation! _Fortune's Arc!_" The great cross of the mystic arte coalesced as Tear refused to give up on this power, continuing, "_And grant us the divine protection of thy brilliance!_" The light spread through the room, serving two purposes; firstly, it washed over her allies, wiping clean the dark aura from their bodies and healing their wounds.

Second, the light tore into Shadow from every angle, ripping its armour into tiny pieces shredding the remnants to dust. Shadow let out a final howl and vanished, leaving in its wake only a mass of first fonons. Luke, free, immediately reached not for the Orb, but for Tear.

"Tear...! Are you okay?!" He grabbed her arms and tried to look her in the eye, but she didn't look up.

"Idiot, I should be asking that question," she fussed, now focused on looking him up and down to check for wounds. "Are you all right?"

"Only because of you," he admitted. "You were brilliant..."

"I... thank you," she mumbled. She then shook him off and knelt in the centre of the room, over the shattered memorial stone.

"Luke, you should start collecting fonons, now," Jade whispered to him. Luke gave a start at how quickly the colonel had silently made his way over to him. He frowned at the detail getting in the way, but did it regardless.

"Yeah, you're right. Mieu?" Luke said, and the cheagle bounded up to him and handed over the Orb of Lorelei. Luke walked over to Tear and placed the Orb on the grass by the tombstone, letting it do its work in peace. He put an arm around her awkwardly, as though not sure she'd appreciate it, but she leaned against him. It took a while for the Orb to finish and for Tear to feel ready to move, time which the group used for various things. Natalia and Guy spent time off by themselves, talking quietly. Every once in a while, she would smile or place a hand on his arm, occasionally both.

Anise, sadly, was too distracted to pay attention to the couples scattered around the room. She was entirely focused on Tokunaga, a terribly sad look on her face. She had shrunk the doll (and the tail) back down to smaller size, but didn't know what do to about it. Jade had found his way back to her and assured her they would get the doll repaired. She hugged him in a sudden motion, almost airborne when she finally latched onto his body. Jade just smiled and ruffled her hair, then took to studying Tokunaga closely. He sat cross-legged on the floor, Anise leaning tiredly against his back for support.

Tear was still resting on Luke's arm. He couldn't feel it, anymore, but he knew that Tear was much more important than he was, at that moment. She had given everything to save them; the least he could do is give her his arm. The two sat there while the Orb slowly worked, and neither of them would have particularly cared if it never finished.

But it did finish, and when it did, a dim light entered the garden through the windows. The garden was naturally dark, but when they left Tear's house, they were greeted with warm, late afternoon sunlight. Luke rolled the Orb around in his hand. The dark and light fonons had counteracted each other's shade, and so the Orb returned to the same crimson shade it displayed when they'd first defeated Shadow. The victory felt good, if not a little bittersweet for Tear. Jade was also scowling, which was something he didn't do often, but aside from that, the victory complete. Whatever was bothering Jade, they figured, he would tell them eventually.

Or Anise would get it out of him. Either, or.


	10. Desperately Seeking Tokutail

_Special credit and thanks goes to Vilya-chan on this one for her superb beta-work (Griff is my usual betaer, and this piece wouldn't be half of what it is without her excellent eye, but I figured since it was her birthday coming up, this time around I'd spare her from exasperating herself with my trivial errors!). She's done a stellar job, so full marks to her!_

_Happy Birthday, Griff-chan! Even though Phasis started as your Christmas present, I suppose it's partially pulling double-duty. But don't worry, I'll have it done before next Christmas._

* * *

It was Jade's idea. 

_"We've defeated three of the six original sentiences," the colonel stated, standing at ease with his hands safely within their usual pockets. "This may be a good time to take a bit of a break."_

_"We have been going effectively without rest since the sentiences began appearing," Natalia agreed, nodding her head slightly, sending her short hair bouncing slightly around her face. "A short rest may be a good idea."_

_"Yeah, we could probably tackle the other sentiences with a fresher minds and bodies if we don't worry about the next one right away," Guy conceded. "Shall we take tonight and tomorrow and rest here in Yulia City?"_

_"Actually, if you don't mind, I wouldn't be against you taking as much as half a week," Jade said off-handedly._

_Anise blinked up at the man. "Colonel? Why 'you?'"_

_He grinned down at her. "Well, you and I, Anise, are going to have to go on a short trip to repair Tokunaga. The others can stay here and rest up." The group paused for a moment, waiting for Anise to say something, but she didn't give them the satisfaction._

_Luke, who previously had been watching Tear with a cautious eye, couldn't help but pipe in, "Um... Anise, aren't you going to complain about not getting a little rest time?"_

_The girl simply shrugged, saying, "I would, but this is about getting Tokunaga fixed, so I don't mind. I'm grown-up and responsible, too, you know." The others smiled faintly at her, but then she went on to add, "Besides, I get to spend half a week alone with the Colonel!"_

_Jade sighed. "Well, I suppose my company could be worse. At any rate," he said quickly, switching back to seriousness, "we'll have to borrow the Albiore. We'll probably head to Belkend or Sheridan to talk to Spinoza or Aston. I'll probably need assistance from either of them to get Tokunaga repaired."_

_"Right. We'll be waiting here for you," Guy informed him. "If you happen to run into a sentience, come back and get us."_

_"Obviously," Anise said, a little Jade-like. "Come on, Colonel. Let's get moving!"_

_"Oh, very well," Jade said dismissively. "Slow down, now, Anise, I can't move that fast, anymore."_

_"J-Jade, wait a second!" Luke said quickly as he started to leave. "Aren't you forgetting something?"_

_Jade adjusted his glasses. "I hadn't thought so. Am I?"_

_"When we were about to fight Shadow, you said you figured out what was going on with the sentiences," Luke reminded him._

_"Ah, that's correct," Natalia hummed. "Would you inform us before you departed?"_

_Jade's face was momentarily blank, although this time it was not from his usual attempts at keeping his expression unreadable; this time, it was blank in utter confusion. The moment passed however, and he put his normal face back up. "I'm afraid I can't quite recall what you're talking about."_

_"Jade, come on, now," Luke implored. "This is important."_

_The colonel didn't quite know how to say it, but he then realized that the mental block he'd been feeling since being inside the Fracture Field set up by Shadow was serving as a memory block. Specifically, his immediate short-term memory was affected. He remembered being in the Fracture field, but his memories of how he was put in there, of talking to Shadow beforehand, of the battle beginning... it was all gone._

_"I'm afraid I'm not making anything up," he said, shrugging once again with his normal Jade tone in place. He returned his hands to his pockets before continuing, "It seems part of my memory isn't working."_

_Guy frowned. "Are you making fun of Luke?"_

_"Not at all. I'm rather annoyed that I didn't realize my memory had been damaged beforehand," he replied. Annoyed was not the word for it. Jade was inwardly seething, or as close to the adjective as he could bring himself to be. How could he have not noticed this? How could be have not picked up on what Shadow had done to him? He was careless._

_And a careless soldier is just a dead one walking._

_"Well..." Guy sighed. "Just... try and figure it out, all right?" He leaned against a nearby wall and rubbed the back of his head. "I swear, I can never tell what's going on in that head of yours..."_

_Jade turned and left with Anise. The scary thing was, he realized as they walked, neither did _he.

Jade was the one who recommended they part ways for a little while, and, though he knew the group needed the break, even he couldn't fathom just how _badly _they would come to need their few days of rest. The group was, after the battle with Shadow, now drained in every conceivable way. The time off was as much time to heal their emotions as it was to restore their bodies.

Jade sighed as he looked out the Albiore's windows. The sun was slowly setting over the horizon. Jade assumed that Noelle would have them in Sheridan to meet with Aston by late evening. He leaned back in a chair in the Albiore's lower cabin, watching the clouds roll by in the distance over the dying golden-orange hues of light sparkling over the ocean's surface.

The door whirred behind him. "Here you are, Colonel," Anise smiled, taking a seat next to him. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to. The ship isn't large enough to hide in."

The colonel gave her a weak smile. "Not for one of my size, I suppose, Anise," he chuckled. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"

"Oh, nothing, really," she replied slowly, leaning back in her chair and wiggling into a comfortable position. "I just thought you might... want to talk, is all."

"Ah," Jade sounded softly. "Well, I appreciate your concern, but it's not anything you have to worry about." He slid a finger up to his temple as though to massage it, but then pulled the digit away. His glasses came with his finger, and he started spinning them slowly.

"Colonel..." Anise trailed off, watching the glasses turn with casual disinterest. There were more important things to worry about. "...when we were in the Fracture Field..." she started slowly, wondering how best to approach the man. "Why was Tokunaga so prominent in your trial?"

Jade sighed. The question was going to come eventually, he figured, but he still wasn't sure how best to answer it. "Even I don't know how my own mind works, completely, Anise," he eventually replied, ending the spin and catching his glasses securely in his hand. "Tokunaga could have appeared there for any number of reasons."

"...Colonel, I saw you," Anise said, looking down at the fairly clean floor of the cabin. "Before I arrived, I saw you chasing your other self with your spear drawn... and you looked really angry, too." Jade flushed very slightly, and turned his head away from the girl so that she wouldn't see him actually displaying emotion. When the colonel didn't reply, she continued, saying, "It looked like he was taunting you with Tokunaga in some way... I saw him running and carrying him, but I couldn't see what he was doing with him."

"So you could see the events transpire through the other side of the window?" Jade finally asked. Anise nodded, black curls bobbing with the motion. "And hear everything we said, I suppose."

"No, nothing like that," Anise said quickly, almost feeling like she was starting to encroach into territory she shouldn't. She pressed on, though. "The window didn't let me hear anything, I just saw what was happening..."

Jade stood suddenly. He felt an overwhelming desire to leave the room, even though he knew there was nowhere he could go to escape the tenacious girl within the limited confines of the Albiore. He made for the door, but she was quicker and was standing at the threshold of the room well before he reached it. "Anise..." he started.

"Colonel! I'm trying to talk to you... I'm worried about you, that's all!" she said, a hint of desperation in her voice.

"Don't be," he replied simply. "I'm perfectly fine."

"_No one _is perfectly fine!" she argued, her minute hands unwillingly tightening into fists. "Everyone was really hurt from that arte, and you're going to be the only one who doesn't tell anyone what happened in there. I _know _you, Colonel." She folded her arms resolutely across her chest and braced her feet in a solid standing position on the ground. "You're not leaving until we get to talk."

Jade placed his glasses back on his face, sighing deeply. "I'm afraid just talking has never been my forte, Anise. I'm sure you and Noelle could have a very riveting conversation, however."

Anise frowned. "It's not Noelle I'm worried about. Stop trying to distract me!"

Jade just smiled. "I suppose it's fair to say I am... _touched _by your concern, Anise, but you had your own problems to deal with, didn't you?"

"Oh, boo, we can talk about me later!" she griped, but Jade noticed that she'd trembled a little bit from being reminded of whatever she'd seen in the Field. He made a mental note not to talk about that again until she brought it up. "I'm worried about _you_."

"Well, isn't this nice?" Jade shrugged, a sly smirk on his face. "We're _bonding_."

"Colonel, don't make fun of it!" Anise pouted, stamping her foot, albeit softly, on the floor. "I'm trying to be nice, here."

"My apologies," the colonel said smoothly. "Even still, I'm perfectly fine, as you can see."

Anise was frowning, wavering slightly on her feet. She thought she had a good way to get through to him, but there was just as much a chance that her idea would backfire. Even still, she supposed it was worth a try. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "...I heard Tokunaga screaming."

Jade blanched; why, he did not know. He should have expected she'd have heard that, but all the same, it came as a surprise. "...that's... very naughty of you, to have lied like that," he salvaged, putting his pride up on display. "I thought you hadn't heard anything through the window."

"...I heard it when I came into your black room," Anise admitted, "not from through the window. That's not really lying..." She strangely found that she could not look Jade in the eye while she said this, and instead began tracing a long, indeterminate path along the jagged metal lines of the wall segments. "I heard... um... _myself_." Jade looked strangely pained, even though she could see he was still trying to avoid showing any emotion whatsoever. "...Colonel. It wasn't Tokunaga that Shadow was hurting you with, was it? It was the idea of me being hurt."

Jade fixed his glasses again, hurriedly, despite that they were already perfectly positioned. "Let's not fling about random theories, now, Anise," he coughed softly. "Remember that Tokunaga was linked to my own mind, as well. I'm sure there's a more... careful, scientific explanation for my pain."

Anise didn't buy it. "You've always been very careful and collected in hostage situations, Colonel," she pointed out. "If you'd known that the other you was holding your mind hostage, you'd have handled the whole situation with more tact. As it was, you were angrily running after yourself!" She took a step forward, poking his chest with a thin finger. "Colonel, explain."

Jade looked hurt. "_Anise_, I'm not _Guy_," he said in his slow, high-to-low teasing tones. "If you're looking for general explanations, I'm afraid you've cornered the wrong man."

She sighed. "Fine. If that's the way you want to be, then..." She moved forward suddenly, and Jade didn't predict her doing anything drastic enough to warrant dodging her quick advance. Anise clamped her arms and legs around Jade's right leg, locking herself around it tightly. Her whole body was off the ground, her lower limbs cross-legged around his shin and her arms in a tight clinging hug around his upper leg. "I'm not letting go of your leg until you start talking!"

The colonel looked down with a little surprise at the girl, fastened securely to his right leg. He gently nudged her head once or twice to see if she'd be shaken off, but she was gripping his leg entirely too tightly for a slight poke to affect her. "Anise..." Jade said softly, leaving the word hanging in the air.

"Nope!" Anise replied. "I'm not letting go, which means you're not going anywhere!"

Jade actually caught himself chuckling. "If you say so, Anise." He began to walk out of the room, moving slowly due to the girl who'd parasitically attached to his leg. Apparently she hadn't realized that her squeeze would only make his movements more cumbersome, not stop them altogether.

"Whoa, hey!" Anise started screaming as Jade moved with a purposeful high step out of the room. "Colonel!"

"I don't usually engage in spontaneous physical exercise," he replied with a slight grin. "But I suppose going to do two or three hundred squats wouldn't be a terrible thing."

"Boo, boo, _boo!_"

* * *

Her work was slow, but methodically efficient. Teodoro had loaned her a rather fanciful piece of Dawn Age fontech, a device they often used to repair some of the few stone supports for Yulia City. It superheated and cooled rock, which allowed for making repairs in stone; namely, it could fuse several fragments of stone into one. So, the evening came to find Tear sitting almost alone in her selenia garden, kneeling on the cold ground and slowly but surely combining pieces of Van's gravestone together. The remnants were scattered about the garden, but Tear was fixed in her resolve to find and merge every one of them back into the small tribute for the former watcher that she, as a sister, could not help but make. 

Tear was _almost _alone because her solitary work was now being interrupted by a familiar replica, making his quiet way through her yard to her side. At first he simply watched in silence, unsure if his words would be welcome or refused by the mute hymnist. She'd told no one what she was doing, so he spent his time watching her careful movements, and pieced together almost immediately what she was accomplishing. Still without feeling a need for words, he tiptoed over to the far side of the flowers and began collecting pieces of the gravestone.

He had brought her three piles of stones before she brought herself to say, "You don't need to do that." She brushed her bangs from her eye for a moment, but, of course, they fell right back. "I could do this by myself."

Luke allowed himself a grin, despite her mood. "Since when have I been the kind of person to do things because I _needed _to?"

"I suppose that's true," Tear replied softly. "You act more on instinct and desire than anything." Luke smiled at her, and brought her a fourth pile of stones.

They worked a little longer in silence. The only sounds that the two of them heard were the soft clacking of the stones as Luke placed several in his hands at once and the crackling of the air as the fontech heated the broken rocks. It wasn't for a lack of topic that the two worked so quietly, but Luke felt that anything he could have said to her would be less meaningful than his silent labour. He was content, for the time being, to work in silence.

So when Tear suddenly broke it, he was rather confused as to what he was supposed to do. "I wasn't sure if I was going to make this tribute to my brother the first time I thought he'd died," she said slowly, her voice light over the faint wind that blew through the garden. "I thought the atrocities he'd committed were too great. I thought the pain he'd caused you and countless other people was insurmountable."

Luke knelt down beside her, looking at the smooth sides of the stone she'd already assembled. She'd done a magnificent job. "I don't think anything is insurmountable with family involved."

Tear stared at him with a momentary look of confusion on her face. Then her face turned to a slight grin, and she said, "I never expected you to say something like that."

"What are you talking about?" Luke chuckled softly, looking back at her. "I said the same thing when Natalia and Ingobert were coming to terms with their family crisis."

"Yes," Tear conceded, "but you never agreed to those things when they related to yourself, did you?"

_You're pretty good at spotting silver linings so long as it's somebody else's cloud_.

Luke shook Guy out of his head. "My situation was totally different," he answered, the smile slipping slowly from his face. "Anything's insurmountable through _family_. I didn't think they were my family, then. I still... kind of don't."

Tear looked at him with a partially discouraged look. "Luke, how can you still say that? I thought you'd come to terms with everything."

"Kind of, but not really," Luke admitted, sighing a little softly. "I think I was able to accept my family as... my family only because Asch died. Because I didn't have to worry about my original coming to take his place back. Now there's no one that can take my place, I guess." He picked up two pieces of the gravestone and handed them to her, noting that she'd stopped working while listening to him muse.

She took the two pieces, talking while she worked. "But you always said that you weren't a replacement for Asch, didn't you?" she reminded him. "If you weren't the same as Asch... if you weren't his replacement, how could he be yours?"

"I don't think that's the same," Luke argued back, scratching his head slowly. "He could never replace _me_, but he could replace my status."

"I don't think that's the case," Tear mumbled distractedly, her attention now split between Luke and the gravestone. "You're the only person who didn't ever see that."

"Well, whatever," Luke offered lamely, leaning back against the cool ground. "Why did you want to talk about that, anyway? Has something about Master Van come up lately?"

Tear looked downcast for a moment. "When I was in the Fracture Field... it was Van that I saw."

"Tear..." Luke brought himself to mumble, but couldn't progress past that.

"And even though I managed to defeat him fairly quickly," and here she lowered the fontech and stopped working on the gravestone, so focused was she on her memory, "...I mean, I know I did the right thing, but I don't... _know _I did the right thing. Sorry, I'm not making sense, am I?"

"Not really," Luke smiled, smiling a little, "but it's not really something that's supposed to make sense right away, I don't think."

She asked softly, "So... I know this is a strange question, but..." She sighed deeply. "Am I... a bad sister?"

"Tear!" Luke said, complaining.

"I miss my brother, and I loved him," she continued, shaking hair away from her normally uncovered eye again. "But I was the first one to repel my phantom... and my phantom was my brother. And even back then, I fought Vandesdelca with everything I had." She turned the stone in circles in her hand. "I'm a horrible sister, Luke."

"No, you're not!" Luke shouted. "If anyone's horrible, it's Master Van for being a bad brother."

Tear didn't look convinced. "But I-"

"You what?" Luke pressed. "You didn't do anything wrong! Tear..." he said, taking her by the shoulders and making sure she was focused on him. "In any kind of relationship, you're not the only person who can make a decision that ruins it." Tear blinked, but didn't avert her gaze. It was as though something he'd said had finally reached her. He went on, "You can't blame yourself for that. You did everything you could. He didn't."

"Luke..." Tear smiled. "...yes. I can- and _will_- accept that." She chuckled suddenly. "I never expected you to try and cheer me up."

"I never expected to succeed," he deadpanned. She gave him a gentle shove.

* * *

An hour later, Jade grinned to himself as he drank deeply from his tea. He had eventually decided not to try and shake the girl off his leg, assuming that she would, sooner or later, grow bored and release her grip on his limb. Of course, she had yet to let him go. It was to her credit, he reflected, that the girl was as tenacious as she was- really, she was startlingly close to Dist's level of bullheadedness- yet never managed to annoy him to the level that the fontech engineer did. He replaced his smile with an expressionless mask as he lowered the teacup, looking down, rather bemused, at the girl wrapped around his leg. "I hope you realize, Anise, that your presence on my leg is only a nuisance as long as I can feel you." 

"Huh?"

"I lost feeling in that leg half an hour ago from your squeezing," he informed her, taking another quick sip.

She frowned up at him. "If you think that's going to make me let go, you're wrong."

"Oh, not at all," Jade said teasingly. "Honestly, with you preventing blood going to my leg, there's more of it going to my brain. I may get more productive work done on Tokunaga, yet." He smiled and plucked the doll from a nearby table where he lay and began examining the broken weapon. "Aston and I will have to be delicate with how we deal with this..."

"Colonel, why don't we go to Grand Chokmah?" Anise asked innocently. "After all, Dist was the one who make Tokunaga in the first place. Shouldn't he know how to fix it?"

The Colonel unwillingly held his breath and let it out slowly. "I'd rather not inadvertently wind up in Dist's debt, helpful though he may be," he said carefully, studying the tattered hole in the doll's posterior. "I'm quite confident that between Spinoza, Aston and I, we can reconnect any loose fontech."

"I really hope so, Colonel..." she trailed off. Jade dimly felt her grip loosen slightly out of her concern, but didn't feel any desire to shake her off. He instead began looking at the doll with a critical eye. In its reduced form, however, he found it difficult to really study the inner workings closely.

"Anise, would you mind enlarging Tokunaga for me?" he asked. "It's very difficult to work like this."

She shook her head. "If I take my hands off to enlarge him, you're going to shake me off your leg," she argued. "I can wait."

"I can't," he said flatly. "I promise not to... shake you off," he vowed, placing the doll on the ground. Anise looked unsure, but she tightened the lock of her legs for insurance and removed her hands from his leg. She placed her hands on Tokunaga and the doll grew to its normal size, the fontech inside soundlessly working to make the doll a giant toy of death. Anise seemed a little surprised when Jade allowed her to grab onto his leg again. "Thank you," he said simply, and began peering into Tokunaga.

Anise clung to his leg for a few more minutes before letting go, moving back to the floor and standing up. Jade raised an eyebrow. "What?" she asked, trying to look cute.

"Oh, nothing," he answered, going back to work studying Tokunaga. "I just thought you weren't going to let go until I spoke to you about... something or other."

She frowned. "I _wasn't_. But I realized that your challenge in the Field was only ended when you trusted someone," she said softly, looking at Tokunaga rather than him as she spoke. "And I just figured that if you were able to trust me, then I guess I have to trust you to tell me about stuff instead of forcing it out of you." Jade made to answer her, but she turned her back on him and said, "I'm going to go lie down. Wake me up when we get to Sheridan." She left the room, leaving him alone in the room with Tokunaga.

Jade let out a slow sigh. "Well, Jade," he muttered to himself under his breath, "you blew that rather spectacularly, didn't you?" He picked up and turned Tokunaga's tiny tail between his fingers. "You should have asked her to enlarge this, as well."

* * *

Since the lowering of the outer lands, Yulia City had seen a boardwalk added to the outside edge of the dome. The nice thing about Yulia City, Guy decided internally, strolling calmly along this boardwalk, was the ability to just drift slowly around the passage and lose yourself in the endless cerulean world, to watch the clouds lazily float across the sky, to watch- 

Oh, who was he kidding? It was the _fontech _he loved!

But even the Dawn Age machinery wasn't enough to really cheer him up at the moment. The battle against Shadow had left him drastically hurt, not from the Break Touch arte he'd endured, but from seeing his sister, alive and responsive before him. This was different from the replica Mary they'd met, as well; that Mary didn't believe she was Mary. This one had, and it hurt him all the more to watch her fade out of his life again.

He leaned against the boardwalk's railing, watching his reflection in the shimmering water. It waved and broke, then reformed after a tiny wave passed it by. He wasn't very surprised when he saw Natalia's reflection appear in the water next to his.

"Here you are," she said, awkwardly feeling a lack of better things to say. She followed his gaze into the water, and the two looked at each other through their reflections. "...Have you...erm... seen Luke or Tear around since we parted ways?"

He shook his head. "Have you tried her house?" he asked quietly.

"N-no," she stuttered. She kicked herself mentally. _Why am I acting so evasive with him?_

"Oh?" he said. "I'm a little surprised you didn't check there, first."

"Yes, well," she coughed slightly to mask her poor start to the conversation, "I... really wanted to talk to you, anyway."

A very faint smile played across his lips, but it faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Well, I guess you found me."

"Yes," she agreed, staring deeply into the water, as though hoping her next words would somehow float up to her. Unfortunately, she wasn't so lucky.

Guy spoke again. "...So... what did you want to talk about?"

_I'm sure you have more of a clue than that..._ "Um... Well, actually, I wished to speak with you about the Fracture Field arte..."

"...I see," Guy said. He looked away from her and the reflection in the water, instead looking off into the distant horizon. "I guess I should have seen that coming. What in particular?"

Natalia gaped at him. "How... can you act so casual about your feelings about it?" she questioned him. "My trial wasn't anywhere near as harsh as yours, and I still feel rather badly about it. You must be..." She stopped, not wanting to pressure him into putting his feelings out in the open.

He did, anyway. "Yeah," he admitted, "I'm hurting." She went to take his arm, but he stepped away a little, saying, "You don't have to worry about me, though. I'll be fine."

She closed the distance between them again almost as soon as he'd stepped back. "It wouldn't matter if I worried about you because I _had _to. I'm worrying about you because you're... you," she blushed, now averting her gaze slightly.

"...yeah. Thanks," he said back. "I'm... worried about you, too. What did you see in the Field, anyway?" he asked, as much out of concern as to relieve the pressure on him.

Her blush grew. "I'm not... sure how much you should hear of it," she admitted quietly.

Guy smiled and leaned out over the railing again. "If you're not comfortable telling me, don't. It's okay." He smiled genuinely. "I'm sure one of the others will hear you out whenever you need to tell someone."

"It's not that!" Natalia said quickly, shaking her head. "It is just that my challenge somewhat involved you, Guy."

"Me?"

"Yes," she replied, leaning next to him against the rail. "I saw a younger version of myself... and I saw how mean I used to be to you," she admitted, her eyes half-closed in memory.

"Natalia..." Guy started, but she shook her head to silence him and she kept speaking.

"You were always a great servant, and... I think if I had actually looked at the person, I would have been as close to you as Luke was, when we were children," she admitted, and she turned her face away so that he wouldn't see the amount of emotion she was scared she was about to show. "But I ordered you to do everything I could think of... I took your phobia not as a serious condition you had, but just as an inconvenience toward my own future plans." She whispered, "I had no respect for you."

"...Natalia," Guy said softly, "It's not like I had... the utmost respect for you, then, either."

"But you lived with it!" she said quickly. "And I couldn't do you the same courtesy."

"I hated Luke, then, Natalia. I hated all of House Fabre, and even, at one point, all of the Royal Family... you, included," he admitted. "You didn't have respect for me, but at least you didn't hate me. Maybe at my angriest, I would have killed you if I could have gotten away with it."

"Guy!" she gasped. "I don't believe that."

"No... I don't think I do, either," he admitted, grinning a little. "I don't believe that I was someone like that, once. That's what the memory of my family turns me into."

"So..." she said sadly, "even now..."

"Of course not!" he exclaimed suddenly. "If the memory of my family still made me hate House Fabre and Kimlasca, then you would never have been able to save me in the Field. I would have attacked you on sight, remember?"

She nodded slightly, raising her left hand and bushing bangs out of her face. "I suppose..."

"Natalia... we're okay, now," he said, after waiting a moment in silence for her to say more. "I obviously don't hate you. I would never dream of killing you, or hurting you."

"Guy..."

"You pulled me out of the Field, and I owe you for that," he said, his faint smile coming back to remain on his face. "And if I had anything but complete trust in you, I don't think you could have done that."

She didn't answer him through words. Instead she edged closer to him and rested her head and torso against his arm as he leaned against the rail. When she first made contact, Guy stiffened ever so slightly, a slight twinge running through his body, but he found that he felt strangely used to it, strangely used to _her_, and so he didn't jerk away from her or gently nudge her off as she laid against his body. He simply smiled as she rested there, the two of them content to watch as the sun finally began lowering over the distant horizon line. The day was ending, but now the healing could finally begin.

* * *

Noelle landed on the outskirts of Sheridan about half an hour before sunset. The colonel roused Anise, then left to the bridge and told Noelle she was done flying for the day as Anise went off to shrink Tokunaga so they could carry him easier. The two met at the Albiore's boarding ramp, and they made the best use of their remaining daylight to begin the short walk to the city. Anise didn't say anything to him. She seemed entirely too absorbed in her thoughts to even notice him. 

Jade, of course, couldn't resist noting her unusual indifference. "My, my, Anise," he smirked, "aren't we the thoughtful one today?"

She sighed at him. "I suppose so, Colonel. Did you figure anything out about Tokunaga?"

He shrugged in reply. "Well, I have a reasonable idea how the fontech functions, but I'm afraid until I speak to Aston I won't be sure for certain. Is there something on your mind?" he said, diverting the topic back to her inner thoughts.

She blinked back. "Why are you interested?"

The colonel adjusted his glasses, grinning, "Oh, I'm afraid I'm just naturally curious about things. It's gotten worse in my old age, you see."

"Right," she said in passing, shrugging off his usual sarcasm. "Well, it doesn't really matter, Colonel, so don't worry about it, okay?"

Jade raised an eyebrow. "That's unlike you," he commented. _Usually when I take an interest in her, she leaps all over it. How curious._

"I guess it is," she said off-handedly. "We're almost at the city." She pointed ahead to the gates, which were coming faster and faster into sight with every passing step.

Jade suddenly laughed softly. "Anise, you wouldn't happen to be withholding your thoughts from me until I tell you about my experiences in the Fracture Field, would you?" He shook his head. "My, I never thought I'd be coerced by you."

"Maybe, maybe not," she shrugged. "And it's not really coercion, considering you don't care enough to tell me one way or another." She kept walking, but Jade almost took a movement that, to a lesser being, might have been considered "losing a step."

"Well, I admit to being... _remotely _curious, regardless," Jade smiled, walking now in stride with her (albeit a small one for him and a large one for her). "I will make you a deal, Anise. I'll answer _one _question about the Fracture Field for you if you'll then tell me what you were thinking about."

Anise looked shocked. "Colonel, that's not like you at all!" she cried. "What's the matter?"

"I suppose I'm... shall we say," he mused, pausing to look for the precise word, "slightly concerned about you."

"Oh, Colonel!" she exclaimed warmly, grabbing his arm in a warm hug, "you _do _care!"

"Not at all," he teased, fixing his glasses. "I just don't want to lose a powerful minion."

She stuck her tongue out at him, but took it as the compliment it was. "So, just one question?" she asked.

He smiled. "I'm only giving you one question mark to use, Anise."

"Fine," she said, and without hesitation, asked him, "Why did you lose your composure so much, why was it my voice, and why was Tokunaga so prominent in your expanse?"

Jade lifted the same eyebrow again, higher this time. "I believe I said _one _question," he frowned at her.

"_I _believe you changed the rules when you said, 'One question mark,' Colonel," Anise replied. "That was all one sentence, with one question mark."

The colonel just sighed. "Oh, very well," he said, "if I must." He removed his glasses and began dutifully cleaning the lenses with the hem of his sleeve as he answered. "I lost my composure due to a mix of being mentally attacked via Tokunaga linked to my mind and from being enraged at the... prospect that he was hurting you." This last bit was said a little faster, as though he thought that saying it with more speed would make her forget it. "It was your voice and Tokunaga was so prominent because you are... _apparently_ my closest friend among the group, and, being so, it was easier to attack me by using you."

Anise's eyes widened. "I'm your friend?"

"Is it really such a surprise to hear that?" he asked, looking down at her with an glasses-less face.

"Not... really," she said, looking down. "I knew that, but it's not something I expected you to _say_."

"I suppose I don't say those things often," he admitted.

"I'm... actually a little flattered," Anise said quietly. "I didn't know I was that important to you."

"Neither did I," he said, upbeat. "It's astonishing what you can learn during torture."

"...you know," she said slowly. "Those answers aren't really as... full as I was hoping for."

"Oh?" Jade smiled. "What were you hoping for? That I would break down in full-fledged horror of my own experience?"

"...no, but I was expecting you to lose your usual cheery tone," she admitted.

"Oh, well," he grinned wider. "There's always next time." Inwardly, Jade smiled deeper than his face showed in relief when she didn't touch on the issue of his memory loss. He smiled even wider, still, when he got to say his next statement. "So, isn't it about time for you to give me a penny for your thoughts?"

"Oh, that," Anise grinned mischieviously. "I was thinking about a way to get you to talk about what happened in the Fracture Field. Thanks, Colonel!" she said cheerily, and skipped off into the city. Jade watched her go with an unreadable expression on her face.

_I can't believe it!_ Anise rejoiced in her head. _I actually put one over on the Colonel!_

_I can't believe it,_ Jade sighed to himself. _Children today can't do anything without an adult's help. _He chucked as he put his glasses back on and followed her. _Maybe next time she'll get information out of me without me setting her up to take it. ...and perhaps now we can move on and forget about it._ He passed through the city gates, and he and Anise went off to find Aston.


	11. Vestige

"Well," Aston hummed to himself. "Well, well, well."

"Well?" Anise asked impatiently.

"Well..." the mechanist started slowly, stopping to gather his thoughts.

"Well, well," Jade shrugged, taking his hand out of Tokunaga and readjusting his glove.

"_Well?!_" Anise cried.

"We're good," Aston finally said, stretching to straighten his back.

"I believe you mean we're _well_, Aston," Jade commented in his normal Jade tone.

"Don't you start telling me how to talk, you young whippersnapper!" Aston jokingly shouted, shaking his fist at the colonel.

Anise grabbed her head in her hands, spinning her body above the waist to express her exasperation. "Who cares about that? What about Tokunaga?" The doll was laying on the table, enlarged, with the severed enlarged tail sitting on a smaller table nearby. Aston and Jade were going back and forth between the two pieces, examining how the doll moved. Since Anise still had control over the size functions of her weapon, they concerned themselves only with figuring out how Tokunaga moved and how to repair him.

"Have you figured it out, yet?" Anise asked again, impatience growing to near-Luke levels.

"I believe so," Jade confirmed, nodding shortly. "Do you see this sturdy cable that's poking out from the tail?" When she nodded, he pulled back a little fluff from the matching hold in Tokunaga and said, "The same cable is right here. I believe the cable is responsible for movement."

"That's right!" Aston jumped in. "It's a special kind of cable. It's extremely durable, remarkably flexible and seems to have been fine-tuned to be exceptionally responsive to specific fonons."

"Yeah, those would be my fonons, rights?" Anise asked. "Dist told me Tokunaga would be responsive only to my own fonon signature."

"Ah, yes, I figured as much," Jade commented, smirking slightly. "In order to move Tokunaga, you begin by gathering fonons through your fon slots. Then you direct the fonons, which are now imbued with your own fonon signature, into the cable. The cable reacts to your fonons, and then moves wherever you will it to." He scratched his chin, smiling. "I must admit, that's a rather impressive design, coming from Dist the Runny."

"So, wait," Anise said, "doesn't that mean the problem is just that cable? We can just reconnect that, right?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Aston frowned. "The cable is made with a very specific type of ore. We'll have to find that ore, then, and solder the two pieces together with it. Then we can sew the tail back on."

Anise giggled. "You can sew, Aston?"

"Well... no, not really," he replied. "But I've invented a new piece of fontech that _should _be able to-"

"_I'll do it myself_," Anise said suddenly, hugging the tail and turning it away from him.

Jade smiled. "You're an accomplished seamstress, Anise?" he said, smiling.

"It's a good talent to have when one is fishing for a rich husband," she smiled back, batting her eyes.

"Indeed," the colonel replied simply.

"Anyway," Anise said, shaking herself out of her marriage hopes reverie, "what kind of ore do we need?"

Aston smiled. "You're very lucky in that regard, little missy! The ore you need is Meggioran Ore, which can be found out in the Highlands. They're particularly windy for this time of year, but you've handled that once, so I think you'd be all right."

Anise blinked awkwardly. "Seriously, Meggioran Ore? That's rather convenient..."

"Not particularly," Jade frowned. "The ore will be difficult to find and excavate with such a small force able to go in. There are _monsters_ in the Highlands, remember."

Anise scowled. "So what? We can take them out, Colonel. Even without Tokunaga, I can still fight! I can still use fonic artes."

Jade looked bemused for a moment. Then his normal face was back up, and he said happily, "Very well, then. Anise, you and I will leave for the Megiorra Highlands first thing tomorrow morning." She smiled at him. "Just be careful," he added. "I don't want you being a liability without Tokunaga, understood?"

"All right!" Anise exclaimed, hand raised in the air. "Colonel, from this point on until Tokunaga's repaired, I'm officially naming you my Fon Master Guardian!"

"However shall I contain my excitement?"

* * *

The nice thing about staying in Yulia City was that lodging was very inexpensive. Since Tear lived there, they could either borrow sleeping bags and take the floor or camp out in the garden. Tonight saw the four of them laying in sleeping bags in the garden, talking idly while they slowly drifted off to sleep. 

"Baticul or Grand Chokmah?" Guy asked lazily, suppressing a yawn.

"Hm?" Tear mumbled.

"Which would you prefer to live in, Tear?" he smirked. "You don't have an attachment to either."

Natalia eyed her as Tear stumbled through saying, "Oh... Well, I-I suppose... um... Grand Chokmah..."

"Well!" Natalia admonished, though only teasingly and to get at Tear. "Is my beloved home not good enough for you, Tear?"

"N-no, it's not that at all!" the hymnist replied, now blushing. "It's just that... um... Grand Chokmah has those beautiful waterfalls... and..." She kept speaking beyond this, but her last words were mumbled too softly to be heard.

"What was that, Tear?" Luke asked.

"...cute rappigs," she said, embarrassed. The others laughed. "Oh, stop that!"

"Sorry," Guy laughed. "It was just a burning question, I guess."

"Oh?" Tear answered. "Well, you've lived in both. Which do you prefer?"

"Yes," Natalia asked, slightly forcefully. "Which _do _you prefer?"

Guy sweatdropped. "Ah... let's see. Well, when I was in Baticul, I had to look out for Luke. Now that I'm in Grand Chokmah, I have to look after rappigs."

"So you prefer Baticul?" Natalia pressed.

"Actually," Guy said, grinning, "the rappigs are a little cleaner..."

"Hey, come on, now!" Luke exclaimed, but the girls were already laughing.

"Well," Guy smirked, "I don't think there's any point in asking Natalia, so what about you, Luke?" Natalia smiled as Luke deliberated.

"Really... the mansion's felt a lot more like... ah... _home_, lately," Luke admitted. "So... I guess Baticul."

Natalia hesitated. "You mean it has felt more like home since Asch died."

They flinched. Of all the people to bring it up, Natalia was the _least _likely. "...yes," Luke admitted. "I guess I do."

Silence ruled them momentarily, until the princess suddenly said, "Oh! I'm sorry... I... really didn't mean to bring everyone's spirits down."

"No, that's all right," Guy said, flashing a quick grin in her direction, though since she was laying down, he doubted she saw it. "We do have a lot of serious things to think about, too."

"Yes," Tear agreed. "I'm actually a little concerned about something." They heard the rustle of her sleeping bag as she turned, and knew she was now facing Luke.

"Yeah, I figured," Luke sighed. "Let me guess. The _Bane of Existence_, right?"

"Indeed," she said. "I think we know enough about that to piece things together, even without the Colonel here."

"Agreed," Natalia agreed in her normal regal tone. "What do we know?"

"Well, from what the sentiences have said," Guy recollected, "the Bane of Existence is either the Orb of Lorelei or Luke."

_"No one who carries the Bane of Existance shall help me!" Efreet argued. "That alone makes you a threat!"_

_"You mustn't come near me. You of the Bane of Existance, you must not!"_

_"_You_ have no right to comment on events in the fon belt," it raged, "_you_, who seek to bring me ruin,_ you_, of the Bane of Existance!"_

"We know two or three things for certain," Tear said. "First, the Bane of Existance is either the Orb of Lorelei, Luke, or some quality about Luke."

"Yes," Natalia offered. "Second, there must be something in error in the fon belt, or else the sentiences would not be so hesitant to remain there."

"More than that, Natalia," Guy said softly. "It's not just that something's wrong up there, it's that whatever _is _going on up there is deadly to the sentiences."

Luke made a tight fist before he knew what he was doing. "Something's wrong here," he stated. "A sentience shouldn't be able to just die. Did we do something...?"

"Maybe," Tear admitted simply. "Maybe not. What did we do to the sentiences or the fon belt on our journey?"

Luke heard a sudden slap, and looked over to see Guy's hand pressing against his forehead. "Lorelei. We released Lorelei into the fon belt."

"That much we know," Luke muttered. "But what does that mean?"

The princess said, "The Orb must be related in some way, too."

"Right, let's think about that for a second," Guy said. "Luke received the Orb from Lorelei when it passed into the fon belt."

"That's right," Luke confirmed. "We don't know if it was purposeful or not, but the Orb was definitely left behind."

Tear began to think out loud. "The Orb was left by Lorelei. Lorelei went into the fon belt. The fon belt is now dangerous for the sentiences. Therefore, Lorelei's presence in the fon belt is dangerous to the sentiences."

"How is that related to the Orb?" Guy asked.

"Well," Natalia answered slowly, "it could also be that the Orb not being in the fon belt is dangerous for the sentiences."

Tear shook her head. "But the Orb wasn't in the fon belt to begin with."

Guy interjected, "Neither was Lorelei."

"Let's take this one step further," Luke said, mind now thinking in overlimit. "Lorelei's presence in the fon belt is dangerous to the sentiences. The sentiences ran to Auldrant. On Auldrant, the Orb of Lorelei is, or I am, dangerous to the sentiences." He paused, and the others waited on him with baited breath. "...sorry, I don't know where I'm going with this."

Tear jumped on it. "I think I do. Lorelei, the Orb of Lorelei or Luke are all dangerous to the sentiences. Therefore, they must each share something in common."

"They do!" Natalia grinned. "Lorelei, the Orb and Luke are all comprised of the seventh fonon. So, the seventh fonon is dangerous to the sentiences."

"Why?" Luke asked. "I can understand why, say, the first and sixth fonons would be dangerous to each other. They're opposite fonons, they'd... break each other apart or... something."

"That's true," the other swordsman said. "There's not really anything about the seventh fonon that would be dangerous for other fonons, is there?"

"That's a funny way to put it," Tear commented, "since fonons aren't alive, but I see your point."

"And no, there shouldn't be," Natalia frowned.

"The next time we see a sentience," Luke said, "we're going to ask it what's going on in the fon belt for certain."

"No," Tear admonished him, "someone other than you is going to ask it what's going on in the fon belt. You seem to aggravate them."

"Yeah, that's right, Luke," Guy said. "If we want to get any information out of them, I think you'll have to take the Orb and stay out of range for it."

Luke growled in frustration. "No way... I'm the one causing all this trouble, and I can't even be there?"

"This time, it looks like," Guy confirmed. "Don't worry, we wouldn't take long." Luke stayed silent, letting the others plan out how they'd approach a sentience. It was sure to be a sensitive topic, and having already defeated three of them, the remaining three were unlikely to want to talk. Luke turned over in his sleeping bag and closed his eyes. It was only the soft snoring of Mieu off a near corner of the garden that told him he wasn't the first one to fall asleep.

* * *

Jade sighed inaudibly to himself. It was an hour to midnight, an hour since he'd sent Anise to bed, and an hour since he was going out on one of the stupidest excursions of his life. Aston frowned at him, disapprovingly. "This is a very foolish move, you know. I was expecting better for a man of your years!" 

Jade gave him a half-smile, hidden by the shadows of night. "Don't worry, I fully expect to survive to become a man of your years."

"Oh, a smart guy, eh?" Aston smiled. "Well, let's hope you're right. Now," he said, looking over their emergency supplies. "What do you think you'll need?"

"I could use a standard-issue Malkuth army emergency kit," he said quickly, knowing full well there was no way Aston could procure one at this time of night.

"You could use a sign saying, 'This way to the Meggioran Ore,' for that matter," Aston shot back just as fast.

"I could _use_ a box with a tag saying, 'Fully functional Tokunaga doll inside,' too, but I'm afraid we're not that lucky, Aston," Jade replied. "Now, is there any reason why there isn't any of this ore laying around in Sheridan at the moment?"

Aston nodded slowly. "Meggioran Ore is very rare, to begin with. It can only be found in the deepest parts of the Highlands." Jade put his hands in his pockets, thinking deeply. He gave a curt nod, as though he felt Aston was waiting for a sign of understanding before going on. "Also, like I said earlier, the Highlands are very dangerous at this time of year. The wind is particularly ferocious, and that always seems to rile up the monsters."

"Yes," Jade frowned, "that does seem rather troublesome. The wind did seem to aggravate them when we were saving Ginji."

Aston sighed. "Are you really insistent upon going tonight? If you waited until morning when the shops open, we could get you more supplies. As it is, now, we have rope and a lantern."

The colonel frowned. "I'm afraid I'd like to have this trip done before morning's light," he said simply. He took the rope and lantern and headed for the door.

The mechanist's laughter stopped him at the door. "Oh, I get it!" he chuckled. "You're concerned about the girl being in danger without her doll."

Jade fixed his glasses casually and replaced the hand in its pocket. "Aston, you shouldn't spread rumours about people like that. It's hardly nice."

"Even better when it's true!" he called to Jade's retreating figure as the soldier walked out the door. "Well," he said to an empty room, "just make sure you come back. I'd hate to have to tell that girl of an unfortunate incident..."

Jade didn't hear, of course, as he was already walking with a determined stride out to the edge of the town. If he was to have any success, he would have to be in and out of the Highlands quickly. He'd also have to be prepared to cast on the double, which meant that he'd be relying on lower-level fonic artes. Jade loved his Meteor Storm, but the arte's casting time was just too immense when he was fighting solo.

And fighting solo he would be, because bringing Anise, as much as he wanted to, was out of the question. He tolerated... well, no, _enjoyed_ her company, but it was entirely too dangerous to bring her along into the Highlands without her Tokunaga, especially with higher than average wind activity. The monsters were likely to be aggravated and out in spades. Jade realized what a problem this might be, so he stopped off at the Albiore. He picked up some stones and started bouncing them off the cockpit (even though Noelle had a bed on the Albiore, she always seemed more comfortable sleeping in the pilot's seat). After the fourth stone, he saw her face appear in the window, and the cabin lit up with fonstone lighting. She lowered the ramp and came down to meet him.

Yawning, she managed to ask, "Jade, what's wrong?"

"I'm afraid I'll need you to carry a message to Yulia City," he said. "I'm sorry to make you run around like this."

She shook her head, and as she did, it seemed like all traces of sleep had slipped away from her body. No, don't be," she said. "I don't mind. It's nice to get another chance to fly. Why Yulia City?"

"I'll need you to find Luke and the others," Jade explained. "Tell them I need a specific kind of ore from the Meggiora Highlands in order to repair Tokunaga. I know I promised them a half-week, but I might need their help sooner."

"What's the matter?" Noelle automatically asked.

Jade sighed. Oh, what he wouldn't have given to have Guy there! "Aston told me the winds are stronger than usual," he explained. "I'm concerned. The Highlands are normally very windy, but if they're this bad..."

"Oh," Noelle blinked, "a lot of wind means a lot of third fonons."

"Exactly. Please hurry," Jade said urgently, and with a nod and a half-salute, she scurried into the Albiore. Jade walked off to the Highlands as he heard the engines powering up. With a backwards glance as he crossed into the canyon, he saw twin streaks of light tearing off into the distance. "Well, then. I suppose it's about time to explore," he said to himself, picking up his stride and taking the first steps into the red canyon.

* * *

Aston yawned as he walked up the stairs to his bed. He'd loaned out the spare bedrooms to Jade and Anise, passing the former's room with a long yawn. The door was open, waiting for its eventual occupant to return from the Highlands. Aston let a deep breath out slowly, hoping that the man would find his way back safely. He kept walking down the hallway, slowly leaving Anise's room behind him as he continued on. The door was closed, and Aston felt no desire whatsoever to intrude on her sleep. He stifled a yawn as best he could, and followed the hallway to its end, stepping only where he knew the floorboards would not creak. Aston settled into bed, only slightly on edge with worry that the colonel might not return. Still, old age had taught him to approach things with a little more of a relaxed attitude; there was no point in worrying about the colonel not coming back when it was entirely more likely that he'd appear in the morning's light, red Meggioran Ore held within his hand. This relaxed attitude suited him, especially as nothing else particularly worrisome had happened to him, tonight. He would have been more worried if, say, he'd opened the door to Anise's room to find the bedsheets strangely flat against the mattress, but he didn't open the door, so he drifted off to a pleasant sleep.

* * *

Jade held the lantern high over his head. He had to tip his metaphorical hat (perhaps _stethoscope_, in the best of conditions) to the engineers of Sheridan. The lantern had apparently been designed for use in the traditionally windy Highlands, and so the flame was protected so as not to go out in the dead of night. He swung the lantern a little, listening to the sloshing of the oil within the fuel chamber and withheld a grunt of exasperation. Aston hadn't refueled the device, and it hadn't occurred to him to ask when he was still in Sheridan. It was too late to turn back; he'd already been walking in the Highlands for about twenty minutes, he estimated, and if he stopped now, the odds just became that much better that Anise would be here tomorrow. He sighed, just then noticing that the fingers of the hand that was in a pocket were fidgeting. He stopped himself, wondering when he'd started and hoping that wouldn't become a habit in his old age. 

Aston, for his bad memory, was quite right about one thing: it was exceptionally windy. It was certainly windier than the last time he'd been here, and he noted with mild annoyance that his hair was flapping about his head and face rebelliously, at once fighting and dancing with the wind. Realizing it couldn't be helped, he reached into his pack and pulled out the long hair elastic he was duped into wearing with the outfit Peony had given him, which Guy teasingly said made him resemble an evil fonist. He quickly drew the hair back in a long braid, and the weight of the hair together kept the wind from playing with it quite so much. At the very least, it stayed out of his face, which, he knew, was all that mattered in a battle.

Speaking of which, an armaboar appeared and had apparently decided Jade was either trespassing, food, or trespassing to the point that the crime was punishable by becoming food. Jade signed as he noticed the red quadruped, scales running down its body and an enormous horn protruding from its head. He scarcely had time to react before the scaled beast was charging him, its massive, pale horn rushing forward with full intent to impale him. He sidestepped left, and the armaboar skidded to a stop a few feet beyond where he'd dodged. Jade summoned his spear but the armaboar was quick and was on him before he had a chance to attack with it. The spear was used laterally as a defense against the horn, but the beast's sheer strength started pushing Jade backward as it struggled to tear through the colonel's guard.

Jade twisted his spear clockwise, tilting the beast's head to the left. With a small gap but no time to thrust, he slashed with the blade across the lower part of its head, missing its neck but connecting in the fleshy underside of its head. The armaboar squealed out in anger, quickly bringing its head around in a sideways headbutt that took Jade by surprise. Out of position to guard, he took the hit and rolled to a stop several feet away. Upon standing up, he blinked, then berated himself. The lantern had broken upon his landing. The light was out.

He heard the monster charging him from its heavy footsteps thudding against the stone. Predicting its path, he sidestepped again, but this time its bony side scraped him as it passed. He grunted, but it was only a clipping blow, no lasting damage. The battle would get easier, he realized, as his eyes adjusted to the new lack of light, but the monster's eyes probably adjusted immediately. His own eyes, fonic-boosted though they may be, still needed time to adjust to different levels of light like a regular pair. He was just about to think of a strategy for defeating the armaboar without having proper casting time when something bounced off the back of his head, leaving a wound trickling blood. He whirled around, squinting in the moonlight, and just managed to make out a grey and white bird with a jagged beak, tiny and struggling to stay up in the air: a cawcaw. He suspected the cawcaw was more thrown into his head from the wind than it was actually intending to attack him, but he could tell from his squawks of protest that it was angry at the collision, and was ready to take it out on him. "Marvelous," he muttered dryly.

The cawcaw started spiraling around his head incessantly, chirping menacingly the whole while. Jade was so focused on the coming aerial attack that he almost didn't notice the armaboar sneaking up on him from the side. At the last moment, when the large horn was coming at him again, he knocked it off-course with his spear, then turned his attention back to the cawcaw. Still circling his head, he couldn't see it for the lack of light; his only glimpse of it came from when it passed between him and the moon, its silhouette eclipsing the heavenly body every couple seconds. Jade drew his spear back, counting the timing between revolutions based on when he saw the bird before the moon. Then, when he successfully predicted when it was to cross the moon, he stabbed, impaling the cawcaw and slaying it with a single thrust.

Unfortunately, the time taken to stab it resulted in the armaboar having plenty of time to line up an attack of its own. It pawed at the ground for a moment, howled, and began to charge. Jade was just pulling his spear out from the cawcaw, too late to block. He prepared to take the hit fully.

"Feel the hammer of light! _Limited!_"

The armaboar howled as a localized ray of light ripped through its body, decimating its form and reducing it to a lifeless pile of ash that quickly scattered in the wind. Jade squinted over in the darkness and saw a short girl with one hand on her hip and the other clenching a staff. "So," Anise growled, tapping her foot on the ground. "_Tomorrow morning_, huh?"

Jade unsummoned his spear and put the hand back in his pocket. There were two ways to handle this, he figured, that would get her to understand: the nice way and the jerk way. He was very tired of coming off as a jerk.

"Anise, please go back. You're going to be a liability if you remain."

But he was so _good _at it.

"Like you're any better?" she cut back, walking up to him. "You almost died because you came out here alone. You're strong, Colonel, but you're not invincible, and you're most certainly not a frontline fighter."

He balked. He hadn't counted on _Anise_, of all people, to point out his weaknesses. It was true he was slightly weaker without having time to rely on his artes, but having her here...

"So what do you intend to do, Anise?" he asked calmly. "You can't buy me time to cast. That would mean distracting monster attention from me to you, and you're hardly able to do that safely without Tokunaga. I'm astonished you even _got _here without being attacked."

"Hah, see?" she replied smarmily. "Wouldn't you be more astonished if I managed get back safely? I couldn't do the same thing twice. I'm likely to be attacked and _killed _if I go back, now. Better to stay here with you."

Jade frowned, an expression he didn't like to show often. She _was _right, which was the most annoying thing about her argument; to send her back was likely to be just as, if not more, dangerous than keeping her with him. If he couldn't beat her argument, then it was best to deflect it. "And what about you, Anise?" She blanched a little, but he couldn't see it. "Surely you're not all the way out here out of concern. You were coming here by yourself, weren't you?"

"D-don't turn this around!" she cried. "This is about you!"

"Actually, I believe it's about both of us," he said smoothly.

"Boo. Fine," she said. "I didn't want to do this, but Colonel, I think I can still pull rank on you."

He narrowed his eyes. He didn't think she'd go quite that far.

She grinned, a little evilly. "Would you like me to officially petition your services as a Fon Master Guardian, or will you just stay with me of your own accord?" Jade shrugged non-commitally, then nodded his assent.

"I suppose," he said slowly, "you can stay for now, if you must." He returned his hands to his pockets. "But we're running from every fight we can, understood?"

"Boo," Anise griped again. "You're no fun, Colonel."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know I was here exclusively for your amusement," he replied.

Anise shrugged. "Well, now you know. Let's get going!" Keeping a weather eye out for trouble, the two set out walking deeper into the Highlands.

* * *

Jade said a silent thanks for the moon and starlight they had received through the night. Without it, they'd have been completely blind in the canyon. They managed to avoid fights for most of the night, and the two they were forced into against minor cactossuses, ground-dwelling monsters with large green heads adorned with yellow spikes, were handled via Jade holding them off and Anise crushing them with artes from afar. With a weather eye scanning the horizon, he began to note the slightest hint of red in the sky over the rocky cliffs. "It seems it's almost morning. We might want to consider heading back." 

The girl, despite herself, stifled a yawn as she tried to rub the fatigue from her eyes. After all, they _had _been up all night. "But we must be so close, Colonel," she argued.

"Close only counts in darts and horseshoes, Anise," he said lazily. "We'll look for five more minutes, and then turn around for Sheridan."

Anise grumbled. "Colonel, after all this, I don't want to leave without the ore!"

Jade let out a sigh. "It won't do us any good to have the ore if the puppeteer gets gravely injured from being too tired to fight. Four minutes."

"That wasn't a minute!"

"My timing's off," he smiled. "Old age, memory loss, I forget how much time has passed..."

"Boo!" Anise complained, as intent on teasing him as he was on teasing her. She ran to a bend in the road, picked up a rock and tossed it in a false angry throw at his feet. "You're mean, Colonel!"

The stone bounced off the ground oddly and ricocheted for Jade's shin. His eyes glinted strangely, and with the slight light from the slowly rising sun, he followed its trajectory, catching it under his foot in midair and stepping on it, stopping it against the ground. "Well, what do we have here?" he asked rhetorically, moving his foot as he bent over to inspect the stone. "Let's see... it's red and durable, though surprisingly light." He poked it. "It seems to be of a consistent feel with other ores that I know to be particularly malleable..."

"Colonel...?" Anise asked, walking over quickly and looking at the stone.

"Yes, indeed," Jade said, a faint grin on his face. "I believe you've found the ore we've been looking for, Anise."

"All right!" she cheered. "Chalk another one up for Fon Master Anise Tatlin!" She lifted her arm in the air in celebration.

"Indeed," he said. "We'll need a little more, though. Is there more around the bend, there?"

"There must be," Anise replied. "Let's go see." Jade nodded curtly, and the two started walking toward the bend in the path, but their progress was hampered this time. The wind had picked up again, and Anise was having difficulty keeping her footing in it. It kept threatening to blow her backward if she didn't keep her body low.

"Anise, wait here!" Jade shouted over the wind. "Stay against the ground so you don't lose position. I'll acquire it and come back!" he promised, but the wind was still impressively strong even for him. Anise, however, was determined to not be left out of something important, and so crawled on slowly. Meanwhile, with an arm bent protectively over his face and crouching into the wind, Jade struggled for every step to get to the bend in the road. The bend curled around a rock face, so when he was within range, he grabbed onto the first outcropping of rock he could find and hauled himself to the bend. Embedded in the rock on the opposite side was a large slab of Meggiorian Ore. Jade used his spear to chip away several suitable pieces, but his attention was not undivided.

Off in the distance in a low part of the canyon, a brilliant green light was shining. It appeared to _flow _through the air from a wide, circular area. The green glow danced through the air currents like droplets of food colouring in water, mingling and vanishing entirely when they grew too distant from the source. Jade noted how the bend in the path came at a ridge, and from this precipice he could see down into a lower part of the canyon where the green emanated from. His eyes came to rest on a woman's figure deep in the midst of the green. Her attire was a pale emerald shade, and apparently designed to flow and play with the wind at the extremities. She had blonde hair, which also skipped in the wind. Though the air was violent where Jade and Anise were, it looked surprisingly peaceful near her, and so her clothes and hair where not furiously whipping about, but rather tickling the breeze.

"Wow," Anise gasped when she finally arrived at Jade's side, clinging to the stone wall and gaping at her. "I wish _I _had a figure like that..." At her words, the figure looked over at them, her eyes glowing a brilliant green. Recognition seemed to pass on her face.

"This is bad," Jade shouted over the wind, gritting his teeth. "The other sentiences manifested themselves only when we appeared. This one had already made itself manifest and stable in its physical form well before we arrived! The sentiences are coming faster..."

"The other sentiences... Ah!" Anise gasped, shaking her head. "That's _Sylph!_"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You _are _tired, aren't you?"

"Maybe just a little..."

Sylph was regarding the two of them as they spoke with a curious look on her face; it was stuck somewhere between being amused and being annoyed. "This is not good," Jade commented.

"Can she hear us?" Anise wondered.

He mused, "Well, if words can be carried on the wind, I'd say so." He frowned deeply. "It's time to get out of here."

"Yeah," she agreed. "This isn't a safe place to be." Anise turned to leave, but a sudden updraft of air lifted her up twenty feet into the sky, holding her stationary. She screamed as she realized that safe ground was now only a relative term.

"Anise!" Jade cried. "...Sylph! You are attacking a Fon Master!"

"That's amusing," Sylph said dryly. "I had thought you were about to attack _me._"

"Sylph!" Anise cried from the air. "I have no intention of hurting you! Can we talk?"

Sylph did not answer, and Jade noted with grim accuracy that the sentiences were becoming less and less friendly. Beings who had once begun as mighty incarnations, friendly to mankind, were now degenerating into dangerous beings of pure fonic power. Even the influence of Anise, as Fon Master, was holding less and less sway. He was sure it was only her standing as Fon Master that was keeping her alive to this point.

Jade backstepped out Sylph's sight, and tied the rope he'd brought into a lasso. He judged the distance to Anise and threw the loop, hoping to snag her. Unfortunately, the wind was too strong, and the rope was dragged well off course before it had even gotten close to the girl.

Jade gripped the rope a little tighter in annoyance. "Damn," he muttered, the word almost entirely inaudible over the wind. He dropped the rope on the ground, and placed his palms over them, pressing the rope against the ground as quickly as he could, simultaneously opening his fon slots. _If this wind is bolstered by third fonons, then all I should need to do is infuse the rope with earth fonons, and it should repel the most drastic of the wind's course changing abilities. _Being on the ground, even in the middle of such a crowd of wind fonons, it was easier to gather the second fonons into the rope. Jade's face didn't display any emotion as he grimly added in his mind, _Of course, I'll still need a magnificent shot..._

The rope complete, he tried a practice throw, flinging the loop a few feet away. The rope still swayed in the wind, but at least it wasn't being utterly knocked around. He threw it at Anise, but the loop was off by a few feet to the right. He aimed more to the left and a little in front of the girl, and the combination of his aim and the wind brought the loop to Anise. She grabbed hold of it, and he began to drag her to the ground.

Of course, Sylph, who the whole time had a perfect view of Anise, noticed when the rope neared her and she began to lower. "I am deeply sorry, great Fon Master," it said, a hint of sadness in her voice. "But I'm afraid I cannot allow such wanton destruction of my fellow sentiences... or myself." She raised a hand in their direction, palm extended. "_Sonic Shunt_." A blunt blast of third fonons rocketed toward the two of them. Jade managed to drag Anise down to the ground just before the attack connected. The arte collided against the ridge where they were standing, ripping the rock asunder. The arte was weakened, but not stopped, and residual energy still ripped across Jade's back; he was standing protectively in front of Anise, his body blocking the arte from getting to the girl who had just touched down on the ground.

"Colonel!" Anise screeched, as the air slammed against him and the stones that were torn off the precipice and carried in the arte's wake collided roughly against his frame. Jade grunted as he dropped to his knees, struggling to stay upright. He tried to stay focused, but his vision was swimming.

"Anise," he managed to mumble, giving her the ore with whatever reserves of strength he could summon. "Get this to Aston... Luke and the others are coming. Fix Tokunaga... and come back." And he fainted, collapsed against the ground, sapped of strength.

Anise's expression was unreadable for a moment. She nudged him twice with her right hand, gripping the ore tightly in her left. "Colonel...!" She frowned, and reached into her pouch. She pulled out a Life Bottle and poured the liquid into his mouth. Jade revived and blinked at her. "Hey. Can we leave without the melodramatics, Colonel?"

He cleared his throat. He hadn't thought she'd have spent inventory space on a Life Bottle when she had originally planned to sneak out alone. Fixing his glasses, he said, "You shouldn't waste so many items, Anise."

"Whatever," she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away. "Let's go, let's go!" Sylph, under the impression that the two were dead or at least mortally wounded from the shower of stone, did not pursue them. The pair stumbled to the entrance of the Highlands, the going easier the farther they went as the wind died down slightly with every step. The sun was up when they reached the entrance.

"Look!" Anise said, pointing up. Jade actually smiled genuinely as he spotted the Albiore coming to rest by Sheridan. He would have liked Noelle to come and pick them up, but he figured it was better not to risk the Albiore circling in the airspace above Sylph. Luke and the others greeted them as they arrived shortly afterwards.

"Jade..." Tear blinked, looking at his limp.

"I'm all right," he said suddenly. "No lasting damage."

"No, there won't be," she agreed, somewhat forcibly. "O healing power... _First Aid!_" Jade sighed in relief as the lingering pain vanished. The stiffness remained, however.

"I'm very appreciative, Tear," he said, switching immediately into a business tone. "Now, Guy." The swordsman looked at him carefully. "We've figured out both how Tokunaga works and acquired the proper materials to repair him. However, Anise and I have been awake all night in the process. Would you help Aston-"

"_Yes._"

"Very well, then."

"_Whoa, whoa!_" Anise cried. "Guy, don't break him!"

"Don't worry!" he replied. "He'll be good as new when you get him back." The grin on his face looked like it was about to stretch beyond his cheeks.

Anise sighed. "Natalia?"

"I shall keep an eye on him for you."

"Come on..." Guy groaned, and the princess just winked at him.

"Excellent," Jade said. "Then Anise and I are going to sleep until about noon."

"Oh, why so little sleep?" Anise complained, trying to look cute to change his mind.

"Because Sylph is gaining power, no doubt, in the Highlands, and we have to stop it," he replied levelly. Luke looked over at the Highlands, and reached back to feel the Orb in his pocket. No one had to ask what he was thinking. They already knew. Jade correctly guessed that Noelle had already told them about Sylph being here, and so didn't feel the need to launch into an explanation; or, rather, to tell Anise to explain. "At noon, we go," he repeated. "I'm going to let this old body rest up, for now."

"You're not looking that bad for an old, beat up man, Jade," Luke smiled.

The colonel laughed. "Luke, be careful not to make Tear jealous."

"_Don't say weird stuff like that!_"


	12. Temporality

It had taken about three hours of dedicated work and careful attention (not to mention gentle slaps upside the back of Guy's head from Natalia to keep him focused), but Aston and Guy finally, at half an hour to noon, stepped back from an enlarged, repaired Tokunaga. Natalia clasped her hands in front of her chest in happiness. "That's marvelous!" she said. "Anise will be so thrilled to see it complete."

"Yeah, I think so, too," Guy smiled, poking the tail again to test its stability as the doll lay face-down on the table. "You did great work, Aston."

"Ah, it was due to your help, Guy!" the elderly man said by way of thanks. "That would have been fairly tricky to manage on my own."

Guy turned the doll over and raised its back, putting it into a sitting position. Tokunaga's expressed leered at Natalia, who stepped back slightly with a shudder. "Something wrong, Natalia?" Guy asked.

"N-no, it's nothing," she answered, putting as large a smile as she could up for him. "I... um... Could you not have done anything about Tokunaga's... _stare _while you had the chance?"

Guy blanched. "And risk having Anise angrily stare at me, instead? No, thanks."

Luke strolled into the room just then, Tear at his side and Mieu on his head. "Hey, are you finished?" he wondered, noting that they'd all stepped away from the doll. Mieu covered his nose from the lingering smell of soldering, his stubby arms protectively clasped over his face.

"Yup. Tokunaga is as good as new," the other swordsman replied. "Now all that's left to do is wait for Anise and Jade to wake up."

"Or Anise, at least," Jade said, walking calmly into the workshop. "Good morning, everyone." The group made a short round of salutations as he leaned over Tokunaga, studying it. "My, my. This is excellent work, Aston."

"Course it is!" he cried proudly. "What else were you expecting?"

Jade smiled wryly. "For it to break down, fall off a cliff and crash into the ground."

Aston glared at him, muttering, "You've been waiting to say that, haven't you?"

"Not at all," the colonel replied calmly. "Now, let us discuss battle strategy..."

"We're a step ahead of you, Colonel," Tear said, supplying the information. "We've already decided that Luke and the Orb can't come with us when we go to talk to Sylph."

"Oh?" Jade said, lifting an eyebrow so slightly the others didn't notice. "I suppose your plan is to approach Sylph without the threat of the Bane of Existence, and see if you can get it to talk."

"That's right," Guy answered. "Maybe we can get Sylph to cooperate if Luke's not there."

Jade ran a hand along the stitching at the base of Tokunaga's tail, and seemed pleased with the work. "Unfortunately," he said, "whether or not Luke goes, we still must bring the Orb to absorb wind fonons. In doing so, we may still be threatening it with the Bane."

Natalia frowned. "I suppose you have a point, Colonel," she said at length. She crossed her arms over her torso in a rare breach of her perfect princess stance.

"Yeah," Guy said with a sigh. "No matter what we say to Sylph, our biggest motivation for going to the Highlands is to absorb a mass of fonons large enough to support a sentience. That's a threat to it."

"So what would you have us do, Jade?" Tear asked.

"Luke, I'd like you to take the Orb and wait at the entrance of the Highlands with Natalia," he said, lost in thought. "Myself, Anise, Tear and Guy will go confront Sylph."

"Alone?" Natalia cried. "That's absurd!"

"No more or less absurd than when we faced Efreet without a seventh fonist," Jade reminded him. "The reason Shadow was so powerful and required all six of us to face was because we had already defeated Rem and absorbed a mass of sixth fonons."

"...Yes, that does make sense," Natalia admitted, the words coming from her slowly. "With fewer opposing fonons, a sentience could manifest itself more easily. It could also cast higher-level fonic artes faster and more frequently."

"Precisely," Jade said. "Theoretically, since we defeated each Efreet and Rem with a group of four, and since Sylph's counterpart, Gnome, is on Auldrant somewhere, we shouldn't have any problems facing Sylph in a four-on-one battle."

"But then why don't we face it six-on-one to really reduce the chances someone will get hurt?" Luke asked.

"Because you and the Orb can't be around, Luke," Tear said again, a somewhat sad smile on her face.

"We will talk to Sylph ourselves," Jade said, "and hopefully learn what's going on with the sentiences. When we need you, I'll cast Meteor Storm."

"We'll have to cover you pretty well in order to buy you time to cast that arte," Guy mumbled loudly.

"Indeed," Jade smiled. "Please don't mess it up, Guy." Guy frowned slightly in response.

"All right," Luke relented. "When we see the Meteor Storm falling onto the Highlands, Natalia and I will come for you."

"Why is it I who should stay back, Jade?" Natalia asked evenly.

"Because if you came with us, it wouldn't be a fair four-on-one. We'd be disadvantaged," Jade said bluntly. "Your arrows will never hit Sylph with the wind the way it is in the Highlands. You'd be reduced to casting, and Tear has the stronger healing artes between the two of you."

"...I... see," she said slowly.

"Hey, Jade, you didn't have to say it like that," Guy said with an eye on Natalia.

"My apologies," he replied. "Saying things simply is just who I am."

"No, that's all right," Natalia said, smiling and shaking her head. "Let's get to the Highlands."

"Wait for Anise!" Aston said, finally piping up. "We didn't spend all morning on this doll for nothing!"

"Damn right you didn't!" Anise exclaimed, bursting into the room, the doors slamming against the wall. She saw Jade and Luke in the room, blushed and amended, "_Darn! Darn_ right you didn't, I said!"

* * *

Mieu trembled. "I sense a lot of third fonons... I've never felt this many at once, Master...!" As the group had neared the threshold to the Highlands, the cheagle had begun shivering more with each successive step. The monster was more in tune with fonon frequency than humans, but he was unwilling to allow himself to be left behind.

"Mieu's right," Jade said. "Make sure you're aptly prepared for Sylph."

"Don't worry, Mieu," Luke said with a kind smile directed at the little one. "You can hide out in the item bag. We'll pull you out when we're done."

"Or when we reach for a blue miracle gel and mistake you for it in the middle of the fight," Jade said, smirking slightly. Mieu shuddered and dove into the bag headfirst.

"Colonel..." Tear sighed, shaking her head with her hand against it.

"This is where we wait, I guess," Luke said to Natalia, looking a little downcast.

"Indeed. Please summon us the moment you think there will be trouble," she said calmly, her hand edging itself toward her bow unbeknownst to her.

"Don't worry," Anise said cheerfully, squeezing Tokunaga in her arms. "Now that I have Tokunaga back, not even a blowhard of a sentience can stop me!" She patted the doll affectionately and fixed it to her back.

Guy chuckled. "Well, we'll be counting on you, then, Anise."

"That's right!" she said cutely, pulling up beside Guy and trying to look adorable as she leaned into him.

"H-h-hey! S-stop!" Guy cried, shaking slightly as he tried to edge away from the girl. "That's not fair, Anise!"

"Leave him be, Anise," Tear said at length, one eye watching Natalia as she was caught between intervening and staying out of it. "We'll need him of a sound mind when we get to Sylph."

"Oh, boo," Anise grumbled. "I was having fun..."

"So was Guy, I assume," Jade said, enjoying the situation far too much as he poked his glasses up his nose.

"H-hey!" Guy stuttered. "Don't get me in trouble!"

"Trouble?" Anise smiled, somewhat evilly. "With who?" she asked, looking square into Natalia's eyes. The princess blushed furiously, but refused to answer.

"Okay, okay," Luke frowned. "Enough. Can we get started, please?"

"Easy for you to say, Luke," Anise grimaced. "You get to wait around here while we do the hard work!"

"It's not by _choice!_"

"Don't worry," Tear assured him from her place at his side, "you'll probably get your chance to be involved in this battle."

"...yeah," Luke said slowly. "Take care."

Tear said, softly so the others couldn't hear, "As long as you make sure you do, too..." He smiled as they parted ways.

* * *

"_Toue Rei Zue Kuroa Ryuo Toue Zue..._" The melody got Sylph's attention, and with Fon Master Anise leading the way and Tear singing behind her, it did not attack the group of four as they entered the low canyon it was dwelling in. "_Kuroa Ryuo Zue Toue Ryuo Rei Neu Ryuo Zue..._" Just as they thought, Sylph was more hesitant to attack when presented with proof of Lorelei's pact with Yulia. "_Va Rei Zue Toue Neu Toue Ryuo Toue Kuroa..._" And what better proof was there than the Grand Fonic Hymn? "_Ryuo Rei Kuroa Ryuo Zue Rei Va Zue Rei..._"

Too bad it was proof of a pact with Lorelei and not Sylph.

Sylph looked at Tear serenely. "Stop singing, child. I see what you're trying to accomplish."

Anise stepped forward. "O radiant spirit of air, wind's true form," she said solemnly, "I am Fon Master Anise of the Order of Lorelei."

"I remember who you are, as well, Fon Master," Sylph said unapologetically. "I'm rather surprised you survived our last encounter, as sad as I was to have to attack you. I should say that I am... pleased you have survived."

"Sylph, please don't misunderstand," Anise said quickly. "We are not here to fight you."

"That's very different from what I understand of your meetings with Efreet, Rem and Shadow," Sylph said, a little on edge. "As I understand it, you dealt the final blow to Efreet yourself, Fon Master."

"We were forced into an altercation, but we tried to avoid it by all means necessary," she admitted. "If you're willing to talk with us, I'd like to avoid a fight with you."

"This depends," Sylph replied, "upon what you desire to know."

Anise turned to look at Jade. An eyebrow was raised, as if to ask, "What _do _we want to know?" Jade took a step forward and asked, "We've been hearing how there's death in the fon belt. What's happened up there?"

"You happened," it replied simply. There was a cool anger, not quite at the point where it wanted to attack, but certainly present. "You made the fon belt uninhabitable."

"Uninhabitable how?" Guy asked, eyes narrowed slightly.

"...it's the seventh fonon," Sylph answered. "What do you know of the seventh fonon and hyperresonance?"

Tear summarized what she knew quickly. "A hyperresonance occurs when two seventh fonons interact with each other. A hyperresonance has the power to destroy and reform any matter."

"That will suffice," Sylph said. "Do you see what you've done, then?"

Jade mumbled aloud, "Hm... So what you're suggesting is that Lorelei is causing hyperresonances within the fon belt?"

"Not suggesting," Sylph replied, shaking its head as golden tresses flowed behind it. "Stating. Though Lorelei does not mean to, it lost a very important part of its being when rising to the fon belt."

"Huh?" Anise blinked, confused. "What does that mean?"

"Think, Fon Master," Sylph urged. "A normal hyperresonance destroys and reforms matter. What happens in the fon belt are hyperresonances caused by Lorelei, itself."

"No..." Tear gasped. "It's the Orb, isn't it...?

"Tear?" Guy asked, looking over to her.

Tear was looking down, as though inspecting the ground would lead her to piece everything together. "The Orb was left behind by Lorelei... and the Orb is capable of destroying and reforming fonons at the fonic level." She looked up, staring Sylph in the eye. "The Orb was part of Lorelei once, wasn't it? That means that Lorelei can cause a hyperresonance that alters matter at the fonic level, too, can't it?"

"Indeed," Sylph said quietly, somewhat sadly. "Lorelei's presence in the fon belt is causing inadvertent fonic hyperresonances. While it spends time in the fon belt, it is destroying the fonons that comprise us, as long as we stay there. The longer it or we stay, the closer we come to being wiped out by spreading sound fonons."

"Of course," Jade said, as though the information were part of a detail he'd long since forgotten. "The Orb draws in fonons, trapping them within it. Lorelei may use that Orb to prevent its own fonons from spreading and causing randomized hyperresonances." He removed his glasses, his eyebrows deepening into a thoughtful expression. "We had planned to have Luke absorb the Orb so it would keep his fonons drawn together... but Lorelei might use the Orb for the same reason."

"It is as you think," Sylph said. "The Orb, when absorbed into Lorelei's body, holds its fonons together. It can cause hyperresonances within Lorelei, on occasion, but that only results in seventh fonons being destroyed to create seventh fonons. The Orb keeps Lorelei safe for the rest of us."

"But without that Orb, Luke will die..." Tear suddenly mused sadly.

"And with it, the six original sentiences will die off, and the world will slowly drain of all matter but seventh fonons," Guy growled. "How annoying...!"

"I don't like this," Anise declared. "We can't give up on Luke!"

"But we can't let the sentiences die, either," Jade reminded her.

"I know, I know..." Anise grumbled, rubbing her temples. "Oh, this is so unfair!"

"Sylph," Tear said, brushing her hair back quickly, "how long would it take for those fonic hyperresonances to eliminate a sentience?"

"Several months," Sylph admitted, but the expression on her face said she wasn't pleased with where that question was going.

Jade looked at Tear with an unreadable expression. He had come to the same conclusion. If they continued their plan to absorb fonons into the Orb and saved Luke, they would still have time to try and solve the problem in the fon belt.

They had an opportunity... but to take it meant to risk the world.

"Tear," Guy called over. From the look on his face, he'd figured it out, too.

"Yes, I know," Tear replied. "I... am willing to take the chance... to save Luke."

"Tear, think about that, first!" Guy warned her.

"It really doesn't matter one way or the other," Jade said, crossing his arm over his chest.

"Colonel?" Anise asked, hand closing in on Tokunaga.

"Even if we stopped now, we've still wounded three sentiences and all but condemned them to the fon belt. That's more than enough to cause catastrophic events on Auldrant in the long term."

The situation clicked in Guy's head as well. "Yeah," he said, "and remember, we beat Efreet first, and haven't found Undine, yet... that means that Undine's power will be growing steadily."

"Exactly," Tear said. "If we stop, the world is likely to be flooded, anyway. So we may as well see this through to the end."

"Fools," Sylph spat. "Even when you come merely to talk, you still wish to banish me though I meet your pithy request?"

"O countless falling stars, come forth!" Jade chanted. "_Meteor Storm!_" The battle began faster than anyone expected, the arte heralding both the onset of the fight and the signal for Luke and Natalia to arrive. Great flaming chunks of rock began falling to the ground, but Sylph, rising in the air, deftly avoided every one.

"Do you honestly expect such simple attacks to work against me, mortal?" Sylph asked, her face now a mask of rage.

Anise frowned as she hopped onto Tokunaga. "...Meteor Storm is _simple?_"

"Well, to a sentience," Tear supposed, focusing on a hymn.

Guy growled under his breath. If the damned sentience wouldn't come down to him, he'd have to start sending his attacks to it. "Too scared to come down and fight, Sylph?" he taunted. "_Demon Fang!_" The shockwave arced in the air, but Sylph deflected it at the last moment with a blast of air.

The sentience rocketed down toward Guy. "Be careful what you wish for, child. _Sonic Shunt!_" From its palm came a powerful blast of air that Guy narrowly backstepped. The attack left a solid crater in the stone ground.

"Be careful!" Anise cried. "That attack is intense." She charged forward on Tokunaga.

"Anise, you think every attack is intense," Guy quipped.

"Including this one!" she chirped cutely. "_Dual Punishment!_" Tokunaga turned into a whirlwind of death, spinning with sharp paws outstretched, but Sylph had dodged back too far for the doll's arms to connect with it. Tear was singing in the distance, but Anise was watching Sylph too intently to make out the melody.

"You humans are so naive," Sylph growled. "Do you really think you can hit me?"

"_Va Neu Va Rei Va Neu Va Zue Rei..._" Tear's hymn went off, and great pillars of flame burst from the sky. Down came Judgment. One of the blasts materialized right over Sylph's head. It fired down from atop her, but the sentience had only to raise her forearm in a high block and channel some air above her, and the arte fizzled over her head.

"What?" Anise gaped. "There's no way it blocked it that easily!"

"There aren't enough fifth fonons to use that arte effectively!" Jade cautioned them. "Remember, we defeated Efreet first!"

"Damn, that's right," Guy cursed. "And that means Judgment won't be able to go off at full power." He was about to say more, but Sylph was suddenly right in front of him, its heel connecting against his jaw and sending him flying painfully to the ground some feet away.

"Guy!" Tear cried. "O healing power..." But Sylph was on her, next, faster than Anise or Jade could react to buy her time to cast. Tear saw the movement and parried Sylph's attack with her staff, but when the sentience followed up with a blast of air, she, too, was knocked back several feet.

Guy stumbled to his feet. "I'm all right, don't worry. Lucky shot!" he cried as he dashed back at Sylph. The sentience wasn't interested in him at the moment, however, and it came next at Jade. The colonel pulled out his spear in response.

"_First Aid!_" Tear cried when she got to her feet, and the throbbing in Guy's cheek settled down. Tear tried to think of a suitable arte to cast, but Sylph was too close to Jade, now, to use any of her more powerful artes, and her weaker ones were likely to do little damage.

Jade parried Sylph's opening punch by deflecting it to the side with the blunt end of his spear. Seeing an opening after its arm extended, Jade spun around and brought the pointed end in, aiming for its stomach, but Sylph had knocked the spear aside via her palm on the shaft before it came anywhere close. Sylph followed up with a high-speed roundhouse kick, and Jade managed to see the trick as it was used. Sylph used a burst of air to gain height, making it easier to get its kick to connect with his head, and used a follow-up burst of air to increase the speed of its spin. Jade narrowly ducked the kick, but suddenly felt intense pain in the centre of his face and fell backward. After the initial roundhouse had missed and its back was turned, Sylph fired its other leg backward, connecting squarely in the colonel's face before he could react.

"Colonel!" Anise cried, charging with Guy.

"Be careful, it's tough," Guy cautioned. "_Tiger Blade!_" He leapt up with an upward slash, which Sylph juked to the side to avoid. Then he kicked out in midair, but Sylph caught his foot, spun him around and threw him against the ground. His vision was swimming when he saw Sylph standing over him, palm out.

"Die," she commanded simply. "_Sonic Sh_-"

"_Cyclone Shot!_" Anise cried, ramming Tokunaga into the sentience and knocking it away from the downed swordsman. "Guy, are you okay?"

"Nothing hurt but my pride, I suppose," he said abashedly, stumbling to his feet. "Thanks for the help."

"Yup!" Anise said cheerfully. "You can repay me monetarily, if you like!"

"I'll have to think about that..."

"Thou who wouldst take revenge, carve here thy holy seal," Tear chanted. "_Eclair de Larmes!_"

Sylph stared at the woman as it floated in the air. It was hovering directly over the spot on the ground where the arte had went off, but was too high up for it to do any damage. "Is that the best you have?"

Jade struggled to his feet and shook his head to clear the stars from his vision. Sylph was much stronger than he'd anticipated, but there was a very useful field of fonons beneath it, now... Sylph was still taunting Tear, as well. The timing was perfect. If he could just keep himself from looking like a threat...He chanted under his breath, hoping he had time. Sylph still hadn't noticed... _perfect!_ "_Divine Sabre!_" he cast, the grand electric bolts materializing around Sylph.

At least... he thought it was around Sylph. Surely he hadn't missed... No! It had _moved_... to him! "You still haven't figured it out, yet, have you?" it grinned darkly. Jade found himself unable to answer. Honestly, he wasn't sure there had been a question to figure out. "You cannot hit me," it taunted him. "It's not possible." It grabbed him by the collar, its face dangerously close to his. "I can read every move you make." As if proving it, it slipped its free hand behind its back and deftly snatched a knife thrown by Tear from midair. Another second and it would have embedded itself in its neck. "Stop," it said suddenly.

"I'm sorry?" Jade asked.

"Not you," it said, never removing its eyes from his. "The Fon Master. I see that arte coming a mile away." Looking downcast, Anise took her normal seat upon Tokunaga again, ceasing her Bloody Howling arte.

"How?" Jade wondered. "Wait... air currents," he realized, his eyes opening slightly for a moment. Then he was back to looking at her stoically, face revealing nothing.

She laughed mirthlessly. "You humans..." she grinned, eyes now slitlike. "You, who live forever in the past or in the future, can never defeat someone who can focus in the present."

Anise scowled. "What's she talking about?"

"It's just how you live," Sylph went on, as though Anise hadn't spoken. "You spend all your time thinking about what happened in the past. You spend all your time reflecting on what you did, what you learned. Everything you see reminds you of something you saw in the past. And if it's not related to the past, then you're thinking about what you will be doing in the future. You wait, and hope, and wonder what's in store for you."

If Jade had a free hand, he would have adjusted his glasses. "And instead, I assume, you want me to believe that you live purely in the present?"

"More than you do," it hissed. "Every air current around me... Every time you move, you stir the air. I feel every twitch you make, every move you try." She released him by throwing him back to the ground. "I'm prepared to dodge your attacks when you're winding up to move. I'm perfectly in tune with everything around me. I live in the present in ways you can only _dream_."

"So... that's what your trick is," Jade grumbled. "I'm afraid it's hardly impressive once spill your secrets."

"Did you say, '_Press?_'" Sylph asked innocently, shooting its palm forward and beginning to crush Jade against the ground with a steady stream of air. Jade would have made a smart remark in return, but the pressure on his chest was forcing the air from his lungs. He couldn't even raise his head. "And I see you trying to cast, Fon Master," it added, "but do you think you have time?"

"Do _you?_" Guy cried as his sword swung in a wide arc for Sylph's wrist. Sylph clenched its teeth as it was forced to pull its hand back, severing the flow of wind. "Just 'cause you know that we're coming for you doesn't mean you don't have to dodge," he reasoned.

"Are you trying to be a hero, boy?" the sentience shot back, surrounding itself with third fonons, causing wind to spiral around it protectively.

"Don't have to be," Guy answered. "The cavalry's here, anyway." Sylph frowned as an arrow was caught up in her wind funnel and knocked away harmlessly. Natalia matched her frown as she found Jade's earlier words to ring true: she wasn't going to be very useful in hitting Sylph. Luke was already halfway down the ridge when she snapped herself out of her thoughts and set off to join him.

"_You!_" Sylph cried, feeling the pull on its fonons. "You dare bring the Bane near _me_...?!"

"Tear!" Luke shouted as he got near her, completely ignoring the irate sentience's words. He pulled to a stop in front of her, his Key raised in a defensive position to ward off any incoming attacks from Sylph. "What happened? I thought you were going to talk to Sylph!"

"Negotiations broke down," she replied, raising her staff to cast.

"Apparently!" Luke called back. "Watch my back." He ran in, the Orb in his pocket absorbing wind fonons all the while.

Sylph began howling. "Stay away, child! I won't be sentenced to death by you! _Sonic Shunt!_" Luke's eyes widened as the air hammered into him, knocking him back into the ground behind him.

"Luke!" Guy cried as the replica bounced off the stone ground. He stumbled to his feet, but looked shaky.

"O darkened storm cloud," Jade began chanting, "Loose thy blade and run mine enemies through!" By the time he'd shouted, "_Thunder Blade!_" though, Sylph was already well out of range, even though his casting time was shortened from the amount of third fonons in the air.

"I commend you for being able to attack so soon after being crushed," it replied after it had pulled back from the attack. "But can you maintain that haste?"

"I don't really think I'll need to," Jade shrugged calmly. "There are six of us for you to focus on."

Guy charged her, leaping in the air and bringing his sword down in a wide arc. Sylph sidestepped easily, driving her elbow into his stomach. She grabbed him by the shirt and, with a wind-enhanced toss, threw him roughly against the canyon wall. Guy slumped over, unconscious. "Five," it answered.

"Guy!" Natalia gasped as she watched him crumple. "Hold on! Tear...!"

"I saw, I'm on it," the hymnist replied quickly, breaking off from the Holy Lance she was casting to begin a Resurrection, instead.

"_Turbulence_," Sylph said calmly, and violent winds began spinning around Tear. They weren't enough to kill her or even to knock her out, but they did disrupt her casting.

"I need support!" Tear cried, dashing to find a good spot to cast from.

"I'm coming!" Luke cried, but it was obvious that he was walking with a heavy limp from his collision against the ground.

Anise dashed forward, swinging at Sylph with Tokunaga's paws. "Luke, you're too hurt to do anything! Wait for Natalia to heal you while Tear casts!"

Sylph looked almost serene as it dodged Tokunaga's swings. "Almost a flawless plan, Fon Master."

"Almost?"

Anise swung out with a long punch for Sylph's midsection, but the sentience jumped over it, cartwheeling up Tokunaga's arm and over his head to get to Anise. "You're assuming I'm going to give Tear time to cast!" It grabbed Anise by the back of the neck and used sudden bursts of air to break Anise's grip on Tokunaga. Once the girl and doll were separated, it summoned up a mass of air and used it to fire Anise toward Tear. Anise shrieked as she collided with the hymnist.

Tear cried out in pain. Anise's head had connected with the pressure point in her knee, knocking the girl out, disrupting Tear's second attempt at Resurrection and leaving her momentarily stunned.

"Oh, this is ridiculous!" Natalia chided no one in particular. "We're falling apart!" She reached into her item bag for a Life Bottle to use on Guy, but Sylph was on her before she had a chance to pull the bottle out of the bag.

"I can shatter you, if you would prefer," Sylph offered.

"No, thank you," the princess frowned.

Sylph was about to answer, but felt a sudden wind current coming from seemingly nowhere. It spun to dodge it, but the wind current seemed to suddenly extend, and Jade's spear cut across its back. It hissed in pain as the blade left a long line.

"You got careless, Sylph!" he cried. "_Impaling Heaven!_" He turned and, with Sylph distracted from actually being hit, managed to impale her left shoulder.

"You... _how?_" it grunted as it felt the blade sink deep. It was still protruding from the sentience's shoulder when it reached to grab it, but the spear suddenly disappeared in a golden flash and its fingers closed on nothing. "The... contamination effect?"

"Jade..." Tear smiled. "That's great. Just what we expected from you."

"Indeed," he replied smoothly, backstepping away from the sentience quickly. "You may be able to read the air currents around you, Sylph, but you still need time to dodge the incoming attack. And," he added, his red eyes now menacingly narrowed at it, "I'd imagine it's hard to predict the movement of a blade that doesn't appear until it's already inside your guard."

Sylph looked awestruck for a moment that a human had landed a hit on it. Then it began to chuckle softly. "I underestimated you... humans... And you, especially, soldier."

"Flattery won't help you," Jade said idly, now relaxed enough to fiddle with his glasses. "Though we have no intention of killing you, we do need to acquire these fonons," he remarked, gesturing around them with a lazy flick of his wrist. "You can last for a while in the Fon Belt. I give you my word that we'll find a way to save-"

"Your _word?_" it bellowed. "You wish me to stake your life on your _word?_"

"Ideally," he admitted.

"Not good enough," it replied, now scowling heavily. "I'm going to save all of our lives... right now!" It quickly dashed at Luke, who took a step back, still limping a little too much to be able to fight effectively. "All I have to do is take that Orb... and give it to Lorelei... and we're saved!"

Luke froze. "...W-wait... You're really dying?"

"Luke!" Tear shouted. "We can talk about this after! Protect the Orb for now!"

"I... want to!" he replied. "But if they're all dying, too... and the Orb can save them...!"

Jade was at Luke's side in a flash, swinging his arm and materializing the spear in an instant to fend off the rushing sentience. "Luke, grab a hold of yourself! Remember that you'll die if you give that up!"

"But... I-"

"We have a way to save you _and _the sentiences," Jade snapped shortly. "But we can't worry about it in the middle of battle!"

"O-oh," Luke said softly. "Sorry."

Sylph swung at Jade with a roundhouse kick. "It's not nice of you to lie to the boy, soldier."

Jade caught the kick against the shaft of his spear. "Who said I'm lying?"

The sentience, patience now run out with the arrogant man, summoned up all the wind fonons it could garner, but its power was being slowly reduced by the Orb. Even still, Sylph began to shine green from the infusion of third fonons. "Your insolence will end!" it cried. "Are you prepared to _die?_"

"Prepare _yourself!_" Jade demanded, and a large burst of fonons erupted from the core of his being. The burst radius extended past Sylph, pushing the sentience back a fair distance.

"I _am!_" it howled in rage. "Look upon the face of the wind and cower! _Rune Reckoning!_" Sylph's body was revolving, the ambient fonons about her joining her spin and creating an enormous cyclone of air. In about half a minute, Jade knew, her arte would be strong enough to be sustainable in lateral motion; she could charge at him.

Jade froze. He... _knew_ the arte could move? He'd never seen anything like it before, and yet he just felt what it would be able to do. It was as though he was sensing everything about him, such to the point he could predict where something was going.

And it clicked. This feeling was not living in the past or future like Sylph claimed humans lived as. For this brief time- for whatever reason- he sensed _everything _around him. He felt all his fon slots and all the fonons around him closer than he would think possible. It was a strange time to have an epiphany, he knew, but he wasn't so lucky as to choose the time and place for when he had them.

Thankfully, this one brought a certain understanding. "I, who stand in the full light of the heavens..." The others gaped. This was new. "...command thee, who opens the gates of hell..."

"Whatever you're planning, it's too late!" Sylph cried, as its spinning cyclone bore down on the colonel. "You've los-!"

"_Come forth, divine lightning!_" Jade commanded, and a giant pillar of light fell over Sylph's head, splitting into four before it hit it. The pillars created a square on the ground, placed at the corners of an enormous fonic glyph that had appeared on the stone. Sylph was tearing forward at breakneck speed, or so it thought.

Sylph gasped involuntarily. "I'm... slowing down?!" It tried to press forward, but it could only get to the edge of the glyph; it was as though the two pillars nearest it were blocking its progression; and the glyph beneath it was holding it in place! Even its spin was being stopped; it wasn't just holding it in place, it had countered its arte! It tried to raise a barrier of wind, but it couldn't move to force air above it; and the Orb draining its power was preventing it from generating anything motionlessly! "You can't... possibly beat me with this!" she cried. "Your powers are being drained by the Orb, too! They must be! I _am a sentience!_ I won't be defeated!" She swore vehemently.

"_This ends now!_" Jade shouted over her curses. "_Indignation!_"

For a moment, the others weren't sure what had happened, but that was only because the resulting blast of lightning was blinding and the thunder was deafening. When they looked, all they saw were green fonons scattering like mist. There was neither hide nor hair of Sylph.

"Jade, that was incredible...!" Luke cried enthusiastically. "You managed to defeat the wind sentience with a wind-based attack? That's amazing!"

"That was fairly astonishing, Colonel," Natalia said happily. "Are you all right?"

"Please concern yourself with Anise before me," he said simple. "I'll be just fine."

"Oh, of course!" she said, immediately running off to Guy's side, instead.

"Honestly," Tear chuckled softly to herself, setting up to heal the others.

* * *

Anise was disappointed.

"Boo, boo, boo, boo!" she exclaimed. "At one point, the Orb was _pink_," she said. "That was great. Then it went to red when we beat Shadow. That's still acceptable."

"You're displeased with its current shade?" Jade asked, already knowing the answer.

"It's _brown!_" she grumbled loudly. "Dim, dirty, dull, boring _brown._"

Jade smiled as he put his hands back in his pockets. "Well, I'll give you full marks for prowess in alliteration."

She mused, "I'd trade the marks to have a pink Orb back..."

The group had returned to Sheridan, success in hand. The Orb was now full of third fonons to the levels of the others, leaving it only missing fonons of earth and water. They'd heard from some citizens at the entrance that Aston was looking for them, but they hadn't found him in the Assembly Hall en route to the inn, so they decided to let him come for them, instead. The group sat around the brown Orb, reflecting calmly on the battle.

"That was an interesting new arte, Colonel," Tear commented, sitting quietly next to Luke. "You'll have to try it again tomorrow so Anise can see it."

"Yeah!" Anise said cheerily. "I wanna see it, too!"

"Unfortunately," the colonel replied, "it seems like the kind of arte I can only use sparingly."

"What?" the girl moaned. "Don't tell me you can't show me...!"

"Oh, I imagine I could sooner or later," he smiled. "Just try and stay conscious for the next one."

"Boo! Colonel, you're mean!"

Jade was about to reply, meaning Natalia was about to break it up, when Aston knocked and opened the door. "There you are!" he cried. "Where have you been? I've had time to see off shipments of supplies to both capitals, Daath, Chesedonia _and _Belkend in the length of time it's taken you people to get back here!"

"We were a little preoccupied," Luke replied. "What do you need, Aston?"

"It's not what _I_ need!" the elderly man replied. "It's serious trouble!"

"Trouble?" Tear asked.

"In Grand Chokmah!"

"Grand Chokmah?" Jade snapped. "What's the matter?"

"It's hard to say," he replied, flustered. "Some parts of the city are flooding! Others are freezing over, it's chaos there!"

"Both are water-related problems," Guy said. "I think we've found Undine."

"Guys, this is way bad!" the Fon Master fretted. "We beat Efreet first! Doesn't that mean Undine will have had the longest time yet to gather power?"

"Indeed," Jade commented. "And Grand Chokmah is overflowing with water. If we aren't careful, it could sink the whole city."

"Oh, no!" Mieu chirped. "Master, we have to do something!"

"We will," the replica replied. "Let's get going."

"I'm afraid you won't be," Aston said, a little dejectedly. "All that late-night flying you were doing took its toll on Noelle. She's already fallen asleep for the night, and it seemed like she needed it."

Tear sighed. "It would be too dangerous to fly if Noelle's not up to it. Where's Ginji?"

"He's off delivering the shipment to Chesedonia in the Albiore IV," Aston replied.

"...you made _another _one?" Guy exclaimed, almost trembling with excitement. "What's he taking?"

Aston sighed. "Just standard fontech parts they'd asked for. You know, parts for irrigation feeders, teleport glyphs, hi-tech weaponry, all the usual things."

Luke sighed. "Never mind. Look, if we can't leave now, we'll just have to sleep here tonight and head out first thing tomorrow morning."

"Right," Tear affirmed. "Let's get some sleep."

Luke paused for a moment. "Oh, um... just one thing. Jade?"

"Hm?" the soldier voiced.

"I was just wondering... when you stopped me against Sylph today by saying you knew how to save me and the sentiences," Luke said, "you never told me what your plan was. What is it?"

"Oh, that," Jade smiled. "I was lying."

"_Huh?!_"

"I haven't got the faintest clue how to save you and the world, yet."


	13. Turbulence

"Jade!" Luke cried immediately. "Why would you stop me if you don't know how to save the world?"

With a sigh, the colonel replied simply, "Because if I hadn't, you'd have forfeited the Orb immediately, and all our work would be for nothing."

"Besides," Tear said softly, "if you had given it up, it would be the same as throwing your life away again."

Luke shot back, "Yes. My life, but not yours." She couldn't come up with an answer, and so she just met his gaze. Each stared at the other resolutely, a battle of wills playing out in their eyes.

It was broken when Anise hugged Luke's arm, saying sweetly, "Don't worry, Luke! I'm sure the Colonel wouldn't have stopped you if he didn't have faith that he could come up with a solution, anyway!"

Guy raised an eyebrow at the man in question, who merely shrugged in response. "Well," Jade admitted, "I do have a sense that I'd pieced it together once, but I'm afraid old age can have that effect on one's memory." Anise didn't answer, giving the colonel a strange look that he noticed but refrained from commenting on.

"So, where does that put us, now?" Luke grumbled, shoving a hand deep into his pocket in an unintentional Jade impression.

"Grand Chokmah, obviously," Natalia replied. "Undine is there, remember?"

"Yeah, I know that," Luke answered hastily. "But aren't we endangering the sentiences by doing this? Should we really keep going with this?"

"We're not in any position to be asking that now," Guy said. "We've already stopped four of them. Sylph wasn't even immediately endangering anyone, and we stopped it."

"Yes, that's true," Tear said reflectively. "The other sentiences were all endangering cities: Daath, Yulia City and Baticul. Sylph had chosen a safer place to manifest itself."

"But if we had left it there," Anise reasoned, "wouldn't it have just kept gathering fonons? The wind would have gotten more violent, and might have even spread out beyond the Highlands to Sheridan. That could have destroyed the town!"

"Yes, that's true," Jade said, more thinking aloud than actually talking to the rest of the group. "The longer a sentience stays manifested in the world, the more dangerous it is. That may be the reason the sentiences took up residence in the fon belt to begin wth."

"But," Tear said, looking at Luke as she spoke, "Undine is definitely hurting people. And if we leave it alone too long, it could gather enough fonons to flood a large part of the world." Luke sighed softly, his arms folded and leaning against the wall of the room.

"Or it could freeze the world over," Natalia chipped in. "Undine may come at us with water _or _ice."

Luke pushed himself off the wall and placed his item bag on the table. "Whatever happens, we'll worry about it tomorrow. Let's just rest up and get ready for another long day." He was plainly too tired to be in any further mood for conversation. Tear wondered how much of that fatigue was from his own conscience wearing at him again.

"Yes, that sounds like a good plan," Tear said, quickly leaving the room with the other two girls to let him think. "Good night." Anise pulled the door shut behind them as the ladies made their exit.

Luke laid his Key against the side of the dresser, then placed the Orb carefully atop the dresser as he dropped his shirt haphazardly on it. Then he walked back to his bed and flopped down. Jade blinked. There it was again: after Luke left the Orb behind, his fonons stopped fading away as quickly. But when he'd tested that in Belkend, when he'd removed the Orb from Luke and walked several rooms away, Luke's fonon dissipation rate hadn't dropped at all. Unless...

"Guy," Jade said calmly. "When we were in Belkend and I left to talk to Spinoza with the Orb, what were you and Luke doing?"

Guy flinched. "Oh, not much. Just sitting around talking while we waited."

The colonel smirked. "Now I see where Luke got his tendency for naughty lies." Guy gave him a weak smile, and Jade said, "This could be very important. If you would, tell me where you went."

Luke sighed from the bed. "I was curious. I mean, it was me you were talking about... so, we followed you. As soon as you left a room, we entered it so we could eavesdrop. But when we got there, we didn't hear anything, so we turned back. We got back to the room you left us in just before you got there."

Jade smiled. _So that means he and the Orb didn't really become distant from each other... interesting._

"Jade?" Guy asked slowly.

"It's nothing," he replied. "Let's get some sleep."

Guy sighed. "One day, I'm _going _to find out what's in that head of yours."

"Oh, bone, blood, brain tissue..."

"Never mind."

* * *

Aston was up early to see them off, chuckling to himself as he watched Noelle make hurried apologies to everyone for not being awake to fly them to Grand Chokmah overnight. She nearly tripped as she ran from person to person.

"Noelle, slow down," Guy said. "If you trip and hurt yourself here, you won't be able to fly us anywhere at all!"

"I'll be fine!" she said hurriedly. "I'm sorry!"

"Don't be sorry, just get us in the air," Luke said, grinning slightly. "We aren't mad, anyway. Honestly, the rest was kind of nice."

"Aston?" Anise said, walking up to the man in question. "Thanks for your help in fixing Tokunaga." She gave a polite bow and leaned back up, smiling widely as Tokunaga grinned from her back.

"You're welcome," he replied. "Now, make sure you're careful getting to Grand Chokmah."

"Don't worry," Noelle said, "we will be. We'll head west from here and be there in no time."

"I'm afraid not," Aston replied. "West isn't an option for you today."

"Whyever not?" Natalia asked.

"Thunderstorms over the sea west of here," he answered simply. "And there's also a storm system slightly to the north. Your best bet is to head east, pass over the desert south of Chesedonia and go northeast from there."

"Hm," Jade said. "It will take a little longer, but it's still faster than going by sea."

"It's a nuisance, but there's nothing we can do about it," Tear agreed. "Shall we be off, then?"

"Yes!" Mieu chirped, hopping from Luke's shoulder to Noelle's arms. "Let's go flying!"

She chuckled. "Whatever you say, Mieu."

Aston waved as Noelle charged the engines, watching proudly as the Albiore II powered off into the sky, leaving twin trails of fonic power behind it. Noelle headed eastward, going slightly to the south to avoid the storm she knew was to the north. The group had assembled in the cockpit as she flew, a common event. For some reason, casual conversation felt much sweeter at several thousand feet up.

"Man," Luke commented as he idly looked out the window, dropping the Orb in his pocket. "Look at that..." Tear followed his gaze and looked to the horizon, where pitch black storm clouds where gathered. Occasionally they flashed with lightning, but other than that it was just like an opaque mist that had settled in the distance.

"It's beautiful and dangerous at the same time," Tear remarked, smiling slightly. Her face was slightly lit up momentarily by a far-off flash of lightning. Luke smiled deeply as he gave her a long look. He eventually caught her eye. "...what is it?"

He immediately turned back to the window, blushing slightly. "It's nothing. Never mind." Tear tilted her head slightly, giving him a confused look, but didn't press the issue.

Flying to the edge of the desert took the better part of the morning. It was shortly after noon before Noelle reached the point in the desert she'd chosen to switch into a northeast vector. "We're nearly there," she said happily. "From here, it should only be a few more hours. Mid-to-late afternoon at the worst, I'd say."

"Of course, that's by Sheridan time," Guy remarked off-handedly. "When we arrive, it would be closer to the middle of the night."

Anise grumbled. "I hate time differentials." The she brightened up. "Oh, wait! Does that mean I get more beauty sleep?"

"Or less," Jade teased her, "considering we might have to fight right away in the middle of the night when we land."

"Boo..."

The Albiore suddenly shook violently. Noelle gripped the controls tighter in response. "What the heck was that?" Luke asked.

"A little turbulence," Guy replied, answering for the pilot. "Don't worry about it. We've flown through worse."

Luke noted, however, a worried look on Noelle's face. "Noelle? Is everything all right?"

"I'm not... sure," she replied, looking at the dashboard with a little apprehension. "Guy, can you go down and check the engine room?"

"What is the problem?" Natalia asked from near the door.

"It's the flightstone," Noelle replied. "Nobody panic, but it's losing power."

"Losing power?" Luke asked suddenly. "How is that possible?"

"I said, 'Don't panic,' Luke," Noelle said quickly. The Albiore gave another violent lurch.

"That's not very conductive to not panicking!" Anise cried, grabbing onto a rail to keep her footing.

Noelle frowned. The piloting controls were still working perfectly; she could still direct the vehicle wherever she wanted, but if the flightstone didn't start cooperating, she'd only be able to aim left or right as she went _down_. Guy was running to the door when the flightstone monitor beeped critically. "Guy, don't bother going, just hold onto something!" She cut their forward movement almost immediately and started lowering the Albiore in what Luke could only describe as a textbook emergency manoeuver. Everyone was gripping something tightly as Noelle dropped the craft much faster than usual. Before they landed on the sands, though, she slowed their descent so the Albiore wouldn't take any damage. Moments after, the Albiore was safely resting in the desert near the Zao Ruins.

The pilot let out a long sigh. "That was way too close."

"How close, exactly?" Luke asked.

"A pilot isn't supposed to tell her passengers," she said cryptically.

"Humour me," he requested.

"Well, the flightstone should be operating at a minimum of 60 percent of its maximum power in order for the Albiore to fly safely," she informed them.

"And what's it at now?" Guy asked.

"When the warning went off, it was sitting at 23 percent," she replied. There was a short round of shock in the room, with the exception of Jade, who released his grip on the rail and put the hand back in his pocket calmly.

"But the flightstone charges while it's not in use," Guy explained. "It draws in third fonons."

"It _should_," Noelle grumbled loudly. "But for some reason, even since we landed, it lost power."

"So what's it at now?" Anise asked.

"Empty," she replied. "Zero."

"Damn it," Luke growled. "What are we going to do, now?"

"Repair the flightstone, of course," Natalia answered. "Guy, are you still going to check on the flightstone?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm going now. Do you want to come?"

"Certainly."

He and Natalia left the group in the cockpit, heading for the engine room. They were a few feet into the hallway when Natalia noted a distant look in Guy's face. After a few moments, Guy snapped back to reality and noticed her studying him, so he asked, "Uh...is something the matter, Natalia?"

"No, not really," she answered. "You just seemed so absorbed in something..."

"Oh. It's just that I don't think I've ever seen Noelle so flustered," Guy remarked off-handedly.

Natalia lifted an eyebrow slightly. "Do you pay attention frequently?"

"Not really," he admitted as they reached the ladder that went down to the engine. "I mean, I watch her a lot when she in the cockpit." He hopped on the ladder and started climbing down.

"Oh?" Natalia said, hiding the low growl that was threatening to come out and resisting the urge to kick him down the rest of the stairs (it wasn't how a _princess _should behave).

"Yeah," Guy replied easily. "I mean, I'd love to learn to fly this thing as well as she does, not just the basic flying I know how to do."

"Oh... you mean you watch her... piloting skills...?" And, very softly, she added, "Not her?"

"Well, yeah," he said. "Why?"

"No reason," she said, a faint tinge on her cheeks and a smile threatening to spread. "So you can't fly, but you know what you're doing in the engine room?"

"Yeah, Aston gave me a brief tour of the fontech, once," he smiled. "I should be able to see what's wrong." Natalia watched as he was low enough for her to get on the ladder, but he suddenly jerked on the rungs. "Whoa...!"

"Guy?" she asked, worried. "Are you all right?" His grip seemed to have tightened on the rung he was holding on to.

"Y-yeah, I'm okay," he said shakily. "Just a weird feeling."

"What kind of feeling?" she pressed.

"I'm not sure. Like suddenly, something was pulling me down off the ladder against the ground," he said, confused but trying to hide the expression on his face as he looked back up at her. He dropped to the floor quickly. "That was strange. Be careful when you come down, just in case."

"Yes, I will," she said, hopping onto the ladder. Guy blushed, closed his eyes and turned his head as he realized she was about to descend the ladder. Natalia looked down, saw his eyes closed and was about to speak when she hit the same point Guy had when he'd suddenly felt strange. Oddly enough, she felt the same pull being exerted on her. She was prepared for the pull, but not for how strong it was. She cried out, her grip suddenly slipping.

Guy looked up just as she lost her grip completely. He instinctively reached out and caught her, but she felt heavier than he would have figured a slight young woman would. Then again, so did his arms!

"Guy... thank you!" Natalia said earnestly.

"You're welcome," he answered, keeping the slight strain out of his voice. He made no move to put her down, yet.

As if a wall had been broken down between them, she rested her head against his shoulder. "...I am very grateful that you got over your phobia, you know..." she said at length. "I might have been hurt without it."

"I'm just as glad, trust me," he said sincerely. "Though Anise still gets to me."

"I believe she gets to everyone," she smiled back. "By the way," she said slowly, "why were you trying to avoid looking at me just now?"

Guy blinked at her. "When you were on the ladder? ...wasn't it obvious?"

"Hm?"

He blushed slightly as he set her down gently on the floor. "You were coming down the ladder in a skirt. I didn't think you wanted me to look up."

Natalia flushed furiously. She had been so happy he was paying attention strictly to her instead of anyone else that she hadn't remembered she didn't want him paying attention to her! "O-oh! Of course... um... ever the gentleman, I see."

"Some call me a dashing gent," he laughed. "Let's get to the engine room."

She grabbed onto his arm as he started down the hall. "Lead the way."

* * *

"How unexpected," Jade commented dryly, standing casually against one of the cockpit's windows.

"Colonel, you probably knew it was going to happen a week ago," Anise grumbled.

"Not at all!" he teased her, ruffling her hair a little. "Fonmachinery isn't my expertise, after all. _Guy _might have known," he said with a smile in his direction.

"Yeah, yeah, I should have considered the possibility," he said. "But it's just so unexpected..."

Noelle interjected, "I'm the Albiore's pilot. I should have seen it coming. It's my fault." She looked a little flustered.

"Not at all," Jade said, cleaning his glasses carefully. "It's more amusing to blame Guy for things, anyway."

"Gee, thanks."

"Master!" Mieu whined, hopping up to catch Luke's attention. "What happened? I didn't understand Guy's big fontechy words, mieu..."

Tear went into a momentary coma while looking at Mieu's cuteness. Luke sighed and launched into an explanation. "The flightstone uses third fonons to function properly."

"That makes sense," Mieu replied. "Wind fonons would be great for flying!"

"Right," the replica answered. "But for some reason, the wind fonons in the flightstone were negated or blocked or whatever fancy word Guy used for it."

"It wasn't that complex..." Guy said.

Mieu's wide eyes blinked once, then stared up at Luke. "Mieu... so can't we just wait for it to recharge with third fonons?"

"We could," Anise answered, "if it were recharging. But it's not."

"The flightstone's being blocked from recharging by second fonons," Natalia explained to the monster. "Until we get rid of the second fonons, it won't recharge."

Tear added, "we could put the Orb in the room to absorb the earth fonons, but that would result in us absorbing the wind fonons, too..."

"Which means," the colonel said, "we need to stop the flow of second fonons."

Luke couldn't help but let a smile show up on his face. "We went after Undine, but it looks like we've stepped right into Gnome's territory. We've found the last two." He looked back down. "Mieu, do you think you could feel for a high concentration of second fonons around here?"

"Not a problem, Master!" Mieu chirped happily. "I can feel them coming from that direction!" He hopped over to the window and pointed every time he was at the glass' height. His little paw was aimed directly at the Zao Ruins.

"We should have known," Guy said. "Gnome _would _pick someplace underground to manifest itself."

"Yes," Natalia mused, "I suppose with Sylph gone, Gnome's sphere of influence has grown."

"Even up to the sky," Tear thought. "We ran into the second fonons while flying, and that drained the flightstone."

"Right," Luke said. "If that's the only effect Gnome will have on us, we're in good shape."

"Well, there's one other issue, I believe," Jade commented.

"What's that?" Luke asked.

"Guy will explain."

"_Again?_" he groaned loudly.

"Well," Jade smiled, "it's best to let the most _experienced _one do it."

"I'm only experienced because you have me do it every time."

"Why ruin such a perfect record?"

"Ah, whatever," he sighed. "Gnome's power is partially what keeps people and things fixed to the ground."

"You're kidding!" Luke exclaimed. "Wait, does that mean that if we defeated Gnome, people would just start... flying?"

"Eventually, yes, though they'd never come down," Jade said dryly. "I suppose we'd make that one man in Sheridan's rocket tower very happy."

"Peony might not be as pleased," Anise noted. She put on her best Peony face. "_My rappigs are flying away!_"

"All the more reason to do it," the colonel replied.

"Then two things, in other words," Luke said. "First, once we beat Gnome, we're on a timer. We have to stop Undine and save the sentiences before everyone flies away."

"Oh, we're already on a timer, Luke," Jade said calmly, a smirk playing at his face. "With Efreet gone, the world is slowly getting colder, and with Sylph gone, we're slowly running out of air."

"How are you saying this casually?"

"Oh, it's quite easy," Jade chuckled, drawing a deep breath and letting it out. "Ah, smell that fresh air! Oh, but don't breathe too deeply, now. We're running on a limited supply."

"You don't _really _think we'd fly away from the planet entirely, do you, Jade?" Guy asked cynically. "I can't see things getting that far if Gnome were pulled away. We'd probably just get really light."

"Oh, but it's so much fun to see their imaginations racing..."

"That's enough, Colonel," Tear reprimanded him. She turned back to look at the young noble. "Second, Luke?"

"We need to figure out how to not be affected by this extra gravity when we're fighting Gnome," he reasoned.

"Don't worry about that, Luke," Guy grinned. "Didn't you wonder why you're not feeling it now?"

"...kind of."

"So no?" Jade teased him.

"Oh, shut up..."

"I'd imagine the Orb is drawing in the excess second fonons," Jade said for him to save him from having to think too hard. "It's acting as a buffer, protecting us from the extra gravity."

"My thoughts, too," Guy agreed. "When Natalia and I went down the ladder, we exited the effective radius of the Orb's absorption, so we got pulled on more. That's why we felt heavier."

"All right, then," Tear said slowly, taking in all the new information. "With that in mind, we need to figure out what to do."

"What to do?" Luke blinked. "We need to hurry up and take care of Gnome."

"It's not that easy," Guy said. "Remember, Gnome's waiting in the Zao Ruins. We were put in a bad situation when we fought Largo and Sync there."

"Oh, that's right..." Luke said, thinking. "They were prepared to bring the whole desert down on us..."

"Yes, and if we defeat Gnome, it's surely certain to do that before we send it back to the fon belt," Jade said. "A last-ditch vendetta strategy, if you will."

"That's no good!" Anise complained. "How do we stop that?"

"Well, I'm not worried about Luke," Jade smiled. "Luke wouldn't die if his life depended on it."

"I would, too!" Luke cried indignantly. Then he stopped. "...would I?" he asked with a glance at Tear. She just held a hand against her forehead, shaking it slowly.

"Never mind, Luke," Guy groaned. "At any rate, I think I have an idea of what to do about Gnome trying to bring the desert down on us."

"If the answer is, 'Defeat it out before it can do that,' I'm way ahead of you," Luke remarked dryly.

"Not at all," the other swordsman replied. "Let's make a visit to Chesedonia."

* * *

There are several things people don't expect when walking through the streets of Chesedonia after a day of hard work. For instance, for ice cream to fall in magical scoops from the sky. Or, perhaps, the sand beneath one's feet to turn into tiny specks of glittering diamond (though many in the city have prayed to Lorelei for it).

Perhaps least of all, though, is to be swept up from behind in a flying tackle-hug combination from four paces while strolling leisurely through the main street of the sandy city. "_Ginji!_" Noelle cried, ploughing into her brother. "I haven't seen you in weeks! Stop letting them work you so hard!"

"Noelle!" her brother cried, turning around so he could properly hug her back. "I'm not really working that hard," he said. "It's a pretty nice workload. Lifting in the morning, flying in the evening."

"Nice to see you've been keeping well," Guy greeted him as the others came walking up to the siblings.

"You, too," the pilot said in turn. He passed a short look to the group, smiling at them, then asked, "What's brought you to Chesedonia?"

"Actually," Guy smiled, "I wanted to chase down your shipment. We heard from Aston last night that you were here delivering goods from Sheridan."

The pilot blinked in response. "You need that stuff I just delivered? Why?"

Luke explained, "We need some parts from there, I think."

"Right," nodded Guy. "Aston mentioned that you'd delivered parts for teleport glyphs."

"Well, yeah," Ginji said. "They've been delivered to Astor. Do you know the place?"

Tear nodded. "We're familiar with him."

"Great. Everything's up at his palace," he stated. "What do you need them for?"

"Precautionary measures," Natalia replied. "I believe I see what you're planning, Guy."

"Me, too!" Anise exclaimed. "You're planning to set up a teleport glyph from the bottom of Zao Ruins to the desert above it, aren't you?"

"Well, above and a little ways away, Anise, so the end point doesn't sink with the ruins if Gnome drags it down," he answered.

"How has your Albiore been handling, Ginji?" Noelle asked.

"It was all right when I got here, but since then the flightstone's been losing power slowly," he admitted. "It's probably sitting at about 30 percent right now."

Jade sighed. "Not enough to fly safely, I presume. It looks like we'll have to take care of Gnome before Undine for certain."

"We flew right into a mass of second fonons," Noelle explained to her brother's confused expression. "It drained the flightstone in one shot. Until they stop the source of the second fonons, the Albiore II is grounded. And so is the Albiore III, for that matter."

"Ah," Ginji hummed. "That makes sense. I'm probably on the outskirts of that emission range, so my flightstone's been drained slower. Still, I wouldn't be able to fly, now."

"How about your work?" Natalia asked. "Did you find the lifting harder than normal?"

"Not really," he said casually. He leaned back a little on the balls of his feet to stretch his back. "There was a little more than normal to lift, but I didn't really feel like it was too heavy."

"That's good," Guy said. "That means the extra gravity pull isn't being felt here, yet."

Anise added, "Right. So we have to take care of Gnome before it is."

"Well, let's go get the fontech we need, then," Luke said, starting to walk off for Astor's palace. "Thanks for your help, Ginji."

"Any time," he replied cheerfully, parting ways with them to go check on his own vehicle. He chuckled as he looked back only to see Luke practically holding onto Guy to keep the Hodsman from dashing the whole way to the manor.

It wasn't an especially long walk to the palace. It was actually fairly pleasant and cool, what with the evening sun starting to set over the city. Even still, by the time they'd arrived, Guy was trembling with pent-up energy. Jade couldn't help but say, smirking, "Guy, if you don't calm down before we enter, you're liable to shake down Astor's house."

"How can I help it?" he asked. "I'm going to build a teleport glyph!"

"Actually," Noelle said, "most of the teleport glyphs manufactured in Sheridan are pre-assembled. It's too dangerous if someone without expertise tries to make one."

"Why?" Luke wondered. "What can happen?"

"Oh, it will usually still teleport you, Luke," Jade grinned, poking his glasses up his nose. "Usually just in smaller, fragmented pieces."

"Yeah, pass," Luke muttered quickly, and Guy glared at him.

"I could do it with no problems," he said, opening the door to the mansion and walking in.

"You'll still get to set the system up," Natalia offered, and he looked extremely cheered up by this.

"Well, well!" Astor exclaimed happily, seeing the group at his door. "To what do I owe this unannounced pleasure?"

"Hey, Astor," Luke said. "We've got a bit of a favour to ask you."

"Ask and you shall recieve," Astor said happily, his arms opened wide. "Hee hee... what do you need?"

"Did you get a shipment of fontech in from Sheridan today?" Guy asked enthusiastically.

"Indeed we did!" the businessman replied cheerfully. "It's sitting in some crates in the side room. What's in it that you'd like?"

"Well, we'd like a teleport glyph system," the swordsman replied before Luke had a chance to say anything. "We'll pay, if yo-"

"No, no, no!" Astor said quickly, cutting him off. He clapped to summon a servant to lead them there. "I wouldn't dream of it, hee hee hee... Just take what you need and leave the list with a servant so I know what to replace."

"Astor, you're _so _nice," Anise said charmingly, striding forward and hugging him warmly. Jade disguised the smile that was threatening to spread on his face; the others rolled their eyes, but Astor didn't notice. The servant led the group into the side room Astor mentioned and waiting outside the door as they started opening boxes.

"Was the extra love really necessary, Anise?" Luke asked her as she hopped up to sit on a crate.

"You bet!" she replied cutely. "This way he's more likely to give us more stuff next time!"

"Oh, man...!" Guy cried practically drooling over all the fontech in the crate he'd just opened. "Anise, if we get more stuff like this, you can hug anyone you want!"

"Really?" she asked slyly, hopping off the crate and jumping onto Guy in a flying hug.

"_Not me!_"

* * *

"Okay," Guy said that evening, sitting over a fair of fontech devices. "I'm finished." The others crowded around him in the inn, looking at a fairly small cube about the size of a fon slot seal and a wide saucer. 

"That's great!" Luke exclaimed. "...how do we use them?"

"Let's see," Guy mumbled. "This one," he said while indicating the saucer, "is the receiving glyph. It's inserted beneath the ground and emits the glyph above ground."

"That's pretty old technology, isn't it?" Anise asked. "The glyphs in Daath don't use fontech... it's just pure fonic energy."

"That's true," he agreed. "But this will work the same."

"As long as you're not holding it together with bubble gum," Jade shrugged.

"What about the cube?" Natalia asked.

"When we're ready to go, all we have to do is press this on the ground," Guy explained, holding the cube up in the palm of his hand. "That will extend the glyph outwards, and we use that to teleport away."

"How long will the glyph take to appear?" Tear asked. "If the Ruins cave in too quickly, it won't matter."

"Don't worry," Guy said confidently, "the glyph appears almost right away."

"I doubt the ruins would cave in too quickly," Jade commented. "We'd probably have about a minute to get out from when Gnome started to destroy the Ruins. Assuming it tried to destroy them, of course."

"It would be fairly chaotic if Gnome tried that, however," Tear mused. "Since the glyph would be near Guy, we'd all have to run to him within that minute. The Ruins are likely to be shaking, and I wouldn't be surprised if Gnome caused crevices to appear while we ran."

"So we just have to jump a lot, then," Luke said confidently. "No point in worrying about it."

"Something like that," Tear smiled slightly, nodding her head a little and chuckling.

"Then let's get some rest," Jade recommended. "We fight another sentience tomorrow."

"You always do leave us with such pleasant thoughts before bed, Colonel," Anise said wryly.

"Indeed. Tomorrow I'll tell you the story of how Tokunaga was torn in half by Gnome's mighty Ground Dasher."

"_Boo, boo, boo!!_"


	14. Fon Machine King Guy Kaiser

Luke resisted the urge to poke the ground above the buried saucer with his foot. Using the fonic glyphs that teleported people always gave him a strange sensation as he went through, and he was certain that the case would be the same with this fontech. "So it's ready?" he asked cautiously. Moments after he asked, a glyph started glowing in the sand. The machine emitted a slow hum, reassuring and somewhat worrisome at the same time. The fonic glyphs in Daath never hummed.

"Looks that way," Guy said contentedly, smiling down at the shining glyph. It wasn't just a teleport glyph; it was _his _teleport glyph.

Anise growled, "You're going to take us into the Zao Ruins, which, by the way, may collapse when we defeat the incarnation of the second fonon, on a '_looks that way?_'"

Chuckling and to tease her a little, Guy answered, "Looks that way."

"You do realize it wouldn't be that hard to jump on you _right this instant_," she grumbled. Guy suppressed a round of shaking, eyeing her warily as he worked to think up a comeback.

"That's enough, you two," Tear said authoritatively, though there was a bit of a smile on her face. When traveling, entertainment had to come from somewhere, and for them, there wasn't much more entertaining than the grumblings of Anise. Granted, Jade could usually amuse himself, but often he did it by making her grumble in the first place.

"Yes. We must be focused," agreed Natalia.

"Right," Guy said, then instructionally added, "One thing. This kind of technology isn't as good as the fonic glyphs in Daath."

"Of course it isn't," Anise said lowly with a bit of pride in her voice. She puffed out her chest and beamed up happily.

"We have this end set up at the maximum output range from the bottom of the ruins as we can," Guy went on. "That means the signal will work, but it might be a little weaker than normal."

"What does that mean?" Luke asked, sounding a little more apprehensive than he normally would.

"It means we'll get up here just fine, but when we reappear, you might have a problem with a headache, nausea or dizziness for an hour or so," Guy explained. "It's just because the human body isn't designed to travel that far through a teleporter. And remember, this is a one-way glyph. Once we're back here, we can't use this to go back there. Besides, if we have to use this, the glyph down there will be crushed, anyway."

"Another reason my glyphs are better!" Anise exclaimed joyously. "Um... I mean _our _glyphs."

"But if we have to, we have to," sighed Luke. "Besides, we can handle something like that. Let's get going."

"Right," Guy agreed, falling into step.

Luke led the way into the Ruins with Guy at his side. The two swordsmen were not eager to meet Gnome, but were certainly anxious about the whole affair. "Say, Guy," Luke said at length. "What does Gnome actually look like?"

"Hm? How should I know?" Guy blinked. "I've never seen Gnome before either."

"So?" Luke shot back. "You guys all used to make it sound like knowing the sentiences was common knowledge."

Guy replied with a grin, "Well, yeah, knowing their names _is _common knowledge. But knowing what they're going to look like is a little trickier."

"Why's that?"

"Because, Luke," Anise chimed in from her place walking beside Jade, "even though the sentiences often have physical forms they like to appear in, it seems like they can change them at a moment's notice."

"That's true," Tear agreed. "Don't you remember when we battled Rem? It changed from a woman into a glowing phoenix."

"Oh, that's right," Luke said pensively. "Well, what does Gnome often appear as?" He looked back at Tear, as she often seemed the least annoyed with answering his questions.

"It's hard to say," Tear answered cryptically. "Sometimes it shows up as a young child. Other times, as a giant beast of the earth."

"How giant is giant?"

"Oh," Jade commented amusingly, "I'm sure it could probably fit within the Ruins without rubbing the ceiling and bringing it down on us."

"Gee, that's fortunate," Luke sweatdropped. "I'd hate to die because someone didn't have headroom."

"Well, at least we have a plan in mind if case it doesn't," Jade replied. "Assuming Guy's plan works."

"Do you have no faith in me, Jade?" Guy smirked back at him, faking a bit of hurt in his voice.

"Anyone who willingly looks after Peony's rappigs is not exactly someone whose judgment I trust."

The remaining trip down to the bottom of the ruins took about an hour. It took them longer in the past, but that was because encounters with monsters slowed their forward progress. Today, the few monsters they passed that had chosen to remain within Gnome's territory were evidently pinned to the ground; so much so that they could not rise up and be any threat to them.

"The gravity must be immense," Anise said softly, looking at a pan in the distance outside of the Orb's area of effect. It was struggling to raise its arms, and didn't look to have much chance of actually getting up.

"I feel... kind of sorry for them," Natalia stated, trying her best to keep her voice from sounding too sympathetic.

"Well, if you like, you could take its place," Jade offered. "I'm sure it would love to switch places with you."

"Don't even joke," Guy sighed.

They finally reached the same expanse of ground where they'd once battled Sync the Tempest and Largo the Black Lion. In the centre of the area, a little boy was sitting cross-legged, sandy blonde hair hanging limply about his face. His clothes were dirty and tattered. Aside from his hair, it almost reminded them of the shabby clothing they'd discovered Florian in.

"Don't be fooled," Jade cautioned them. "I can sense a large amount of second fonons contained within that child. That's Gnome."

As usual, Anise took a couple of steps toward the sentience, bowing her head slightly. "O steady pulse of the earth, I am Fon Master Anise of the Order of Lorelei."

"Greetings, young one," the child spoke back in just as solemn a tone. "As you have no doubt guessed, I am Gnome." He did not bow as Anise had, but instead kept his gaze alternating between Anise and Luke

"Indeed," Anise answered carefully. "I have come to request-"

"That I return to the fon belt," Gnome cut her off. "I am aware, Fon Master."

Anise shrugged off the annoyance she felt at being interrupted. "Then you are also aware of the reasons behind why we must ask you to return."

"Yes," the sentience answered. "And _you_ are aware of why I cannot go back." The two had reached an impasse, and for a few moments, neither Gnome nor Anise spoke.

"Well," Luke muttered lowly. "This is pleasant."

"Fon Master Anise," Gnome said at length, its voice beginning to sound far too deep for the boyish appearance it was giving. That same appearance also looked a little different, as though it had shimmered, somehow. "You have condemned four sentiences to all but certain death. And now, bringing the Bane of Existence to me, you wish to do the same here?"

"No!" Anise cried. "We don't any of you to die! But if you stay here like this right now, the gravity you're causing will destroy Chesedonia and kill a lot of people there!"

"And if I go back, the drain of first, second, third, fifth and sixth fonons in the world will kill everyonein the _world_," Gnome countered.

"But you're affecting them _now_," Anise said. "We have time to come up with a solution and to save you in the fon belt. Gnome, as Fon Master, I'm asking you to trust us."

Gnome looked wary. "The pact with Yulia _is _important... and yet it is Lorelei itself that it killing us." Its voice was once again higher in pitch, the deepness that was growing having receded.

"Gnome... we'll save you," Anise said resolutely. "Please, listen. Help us reach the other sentiences, too, so they'll understand."

Gnome raised itself to its feet and wavered on them momentarily. "Fon Master," it finally said. "If you fail, you know it will mean the death of you, as well."

"We know," Anise said. "We're willing to take that chance."

"Then... you will have the support of this..._ Ground-_"

"_Move!_" Jade shouted immediately, jumping to the side.

"_...Dasher!_"

The arte erupted in a long, wide line where the party had been standing moments before, but Jade's timely sensing of the fonon build-up and subsequent warning gave them enough time to get out of the area that Gnome was targeting. Anise looked furious as she mounted Tokunaga.

"Gnome, what are you _doing?!_" she shrieked.

"There _is _a way to save the sentiences right now, and all it requires is to take the Orb of Lorelei!" Gnome announced triumphantly. "If I return that to Lorelei, the fonic hyperresonances will stop, and the sentiences who have been wounded by you can regain their strength safely."

"But if you do that, Luke is going to die!" Tear shouted back, blushing furiously.

"So you're going to let the _sentiences _die that easily?" Gnome argued. Its appearance was no longer shimmering slightly, but growing and shinking, mutating hideously. The boy that they'd seen was now disappearing behind a massive bulge of growth and a spread of fur.

"I don't know what form it's taking, but it's going to be a lot larger and a lot nastier!" Luke cried out. "Stop it before it changes!"

"_White Tiger Strike!_" Guy cried as he leaped at Gnome, his sword flashing dangerously. The combination arte did nothing, however, as Gnome danced out of the way completely, dodging the arte, and staying in close to Guy.

"It's still very mobile even while changing," Tear observed loudly. "Be prepared to dodge sudden attacks!"

Guy didn't have a chance to dodge, however, as a large shovel swung out of nowhere and collided against his side before he could even so much as raise a guard. He was knocked to the side, but rolled up to a guarding position before Gnome could get in a second attack.

"Guy!" Natalia cried, watching the swordsman struggle.

"I'm all right!" he called out. "Don't worry, watch for it!"

Gnome suddenly leaped high and crashed into the earth, lifting a short spray of stone up around it, making the others momentarily lose sight of its body. When the dust had settled, however, Gnome was visible in a much more battle-ready form.

Gnome was much larger, now; about three times the height of Jade. Its body was similarly wider, but very streamlined and smooth. Its body was covered with a sleek, dark brown fur that gave the impression that liquids- or even attacks- would slide right off it. It stood on four legs; the rear two ended in sharp claws, while the claws on the forearms were shaped like large shovels. It almost resembled a cross between an extremely large mole and an enormous ferret with two powerful front claws.

"This does not look good," Anise grumbled, brushing her bangs from her eyes.

"You," Guy quipped, "have spent way too much time around Jade."

"Just like you've spent way too much time around Natalia?"

"..._Demon Fang!_"

"Aha! Pegged it," Anise cheered. Guy just grumbled.

"You two, keep your mind on the fight!" Jade called, focusing on his arte. "Anise, we can make fun of Guy and Natalia later!" Natalia shot Jade a death glare, but the soldier paid it no mind.

Gnome came in at Luke swinging, its massive forearm coming in a low arc to try and bludgeon the nobleman. Luke was too quick, however, and backstepped out of the way moments before the oddly-shaped claw would have ploughed into him. He followed up by running in at Gnome quickly, slashing as he called, "_Fang Blade!_" but Gnome was already out of range by the time he'd initiated the arte.

Changing targets, Gnome noticed Tear off to the side, singing. Recognizing the lyrics as the third Yulian Hymn, it quickly summoned up a Ground Dasher before Tear could complete the arte. The rush of second fonons slammed against the hymnist, and she collapsed against the ground, coughing and trying to roll to her feet, somewhat unsuccessfully.

"_Light Spear Cannon!_" Luke cried as he drew close enough to Gnome, and it was out of rage that the spinning arte tore into Gnome's fur as well as it did. Gnome retaliated by scooping up a load of earth in its shovel-claw and slamming it against Luke, partially blinding him and throwing him backward.

Jade's preparation was ready, and he'd used the ambient second fonons to call forth one of his favourite arte: "_Icicle Rain!_" Great spears of ice materialized above Gnome and came crashing down on the sentience, but oddly enough, the icicles slid alone Gnome's coat instead of piercing it, leaving the being unharmed. "Will I have to burn that fur first?" he asked sardonically.

Gnome didn't reply with any words beyond saying, "_Stalagmite!_" Jade sidestepped the range of the arte, but was shocked to find the arte was much larger than the one he usually cast. As a result, he hasn't sidestepped enough and the arte dealt him some fairly serious damage before it pushed him away.

The colonel was already in the process of pressing against the most severe wounds when he heard Natalia cry, "O soothing light! _Heal!_" The healing arte ran over him, and when the tinge of green faded, Jade didn't have to double-check to know that all of his injuries had closed up.

Guy, sneakily, had run in while Gnome was casting, and used the sentience's distraction to get in close enough that the being couldn't dodge. "_Final Cross!_" he cried, creating a large x-shaped uprising of fonic power, then making it explode more by holding his sword horizontally over it. Gnome didn't cry out, but it did grunt and muffle a long groan as the fonons ripped into it from beneath. When the arte ended, however, there was hardly a singe mark on its fur.

"You're a large nuisance," it said as it looked at Guy, a remark the swordsman chose to take as a compliment. Raising its left paw, it swung down at Guy with a furious slash.

Guy, however, still saw opportunities for attack, and so raised his sword and scabbard to the side in a focused block which caught the shovel-claw, though with some difficulty. Grunting, Guy smiled lowly as he held the sentience's claw from reaching his body.

"So what now?" Guy panted through the stress of keeping his guard up. "If you pull away, I get a free shot at your torso or your face." Gnome scowled at him. "And if you don't pull away... _Natalia!_"

"_Piercing Line!_" the princess cried from a fair distance away behind Guy. The arte was aimed directly at Gnome's forehead, and the angle was so carefully measured that not even Gnome's glossy fur would deflect it. Gnome was somewhat impressed at the ability the two had to work together and weave plans without words.

The arrow came close, and at the last moment, Gnome ducked, dodging beneath the arrowhead as it whizzed over its head. Guy grunted as Gnome maintained its pressure on his side, and then swung in with the other claw at Guy's exposed left side.

But Guy had this attack not only read perfectly, but predicted long before Gnome made the strike. At the last possible moment, he used every bit of his swordsmanship training to leap as high into the air as possible, just as the claw came crashing down. The end result was Gnome slamming into its left claw with the right, shattering the former and leaving Gnome with only the shovel on its right paw for serious physical offense.

This damage, though, wasn't enough to satisfy Guy, and so as he was leaping up, he also cried, "_Tiger Blade!_" causing a blurring slash to rip upwards along the sentience's face. Guy spun and kicked its head in mid-air, a gambit that did little but bother such a large opponent, but distracted it long enough that it didn't raise a guard in time to prepare for the Tiger Blade's downward slash. Guy landed and quickly jumped back away from the sentience to grant himself room to prepare for its counterattack.

Tear was on her feet by this point, and Gnome didn't hear what she was saying until the words, "...carve here thy holy seal. _Eclair de Larmes!_" But the snippet of preamble was all Gnome needed to become aware of the incoming spell, making it very easy for the sentience to dodge the incoming arte. Annoyed with the hymnist for her second attempt at a powerful arte, it almost lazily threw a powerful Ground Dasher in her direction with so little casting time that Tear was unprepared for the assault. The arte connected with her squarely and dropped her roughly to the ground, unconscious.

"Tear!" Luke cried out upon seeing the woman hit the earth. "Damn it!" And he rushed Gnome immediately, full of rage. He brought the Key down in an overhead arc, but the sentience blocked it with its good paw, using the claw first to intercept the slash, then to push Luke away roughly. Luke slammed into the ground, not unconscious, but too dazed to fight at the moment.

Anise looked over with worry in her eyes, but realized her time would best be spent distracting the sentience with artes while Natalia worked on healing Luke. She began twirling her staff from her place atop Tokunaga. "O hellion whose roar chills the very soul, resound! _Bloody Howling!_" Gnome started thrashing violently as it was caught up in the centre of the arte. Right when the fonons started tearing through the brown fur, however, the sentience called up a large burst of second fonons and emitted them forcefully from its body, dispelling Anise's attack instantly.

"Colonel, how did it do that?" Anise cried as she settled into a sitting place on Tokunaga again, her eyes wide.

"My guess," Jade answered as he dodged a particularly large rock which Gnome had thrown in his direction, "is that it used the second fonons to build up a barrier around itself, then forced the barrier outwards to scatter the arte."

"A barrier with second fonons...?" Natalia wondered. "Oh, wait! The second fonic hymn uses second fonons..."

"And that hymn is Force Field," Guy groaned.

"Can we talk about this later, guys?!" Anise cried, Tokunaga leaping backwards as Gnome slammed into the ground where she'd been standing a moment ago with a giant shovel claw.

"Indeed," Natalia mumbled as she began to gather fonons. A glyph appeared at her feet as she began focusing on a healing arte.

Gnome wasn't about to allow her the casting time, however, and it furiously dashed at her. Its right claw raised, Guy prepared to catch the blow with scabbard and sword like he had the other claw earlier, but at the apex the wind-up, the edge of Gnome's claw began to glow golden, as though something were beginning to extend from the inside of the claw. Gnome swung, leaving a golden trail behind its paw.

Guy instantly felt the power in the swing and immediately turned and grabbed Natalia, pushing the two of them to the ground and laying as flat as he could to ensure the attack swung over them. The shovel swept over their bodies, but Gnome used the power of the attack to raise and lower it in one large, sweeping motion that didn't detract from its overall strength. By the time the sentience was preparing its second swing, however, Guy had already moved enough to give Natalia a chance to see the attack. He shifted quickly to give her room for a quick shot at Gnome's eye. It didn't connect, but it was sudden enough that Gnome's aim was thrown off by a sufficient amount to give Guy and Natalia time to roll away.

What neither was expecting, however, was that the golden energy would set of a minute explosion in the earth the moment it contacted. The pair were a metre to either side of the shovel when it connected with the ground, and the resulting fonic blast blew each of them some feet away. Both managed to roll to their feet, but Natalia was looking exceptionally dizzy from the attack, her hand pressed against her head to keep it from spinning.

"Damn it," Guy groaned as he shook the dizziness from his head. "What kind of attack was that?"

"An unpleasant one," Jade mumbled. "It appears that it used second fonons to create a large blade that extends greatly from the outside of its claw."

"Whoa," Anise gasped. "So it's like an earth-fonon battleaxe."

"And one which explodes with fonons upon contact," Natalia said shakily, only now removing her hand from her head.

"Yes. A direct hit with that attack would likely be instantly fatal, even if you were to block it with a normal weapon," Jade offered quickly. "Please try not to get hit with it, Anise."

"Boo, why just me?"

"Because it's running at you right now."

Anise's battle expression was firmly planted on her face when Gnome charged her, and Tokunaga matched her visage, grin-for-frown. Gnome thrust with the fonic-enhanced claw, but Anise stepped to the side and swung with a heavy Dragon Surge that caught Gnome, but was dulled by the protective fur. The sentience tried to swing at Anise with a follow-up swing, but the Fon Master was already out of range and running to plan her next move.

"That fur's impossible to deal with!" she griped loudly as she looked for an opening, circling the giant being carefully.

"I would imagine it's enhanced with similar properties to what the Force Field hymn grants," Jade hypothesized. "After all, Force Field is the second-fonon hymn."

"So we have to knock out that Force Field effect first?" Guy asked.

Gnome charged Jade, who almost casually dodged the swing and then got out of range of a follow-up attack. Gnome slammed the ground, causing the same explostion that had caught Natalia and Guy, but Jade was well out of the range of it. "Yes, but we have an advantage, here," Jade mused after he'd pulled away far enough. "We have hurt it before. The Bloody Howling seemed to be effective at getting through that fur. Whereas Tear's Force Field prevents _all _damage for a time. Therefore, it can't be a complete force field."

"So what's the plan, Colonel?" Anise asked, punching Gnome from behind (somewhat uselessly) and running back to avoid the invariably more powerful counterattack.

"We have to take out that fur," he said. "And I'd imagine the best way to do that would be to burn it."

"All right," Natalia agreed. "Guy and Anise will buy you time to cast fire artes while I concentrate on healing Luke and Tear." She glanced over at the two. Tear was still laying on the ground, and Luke seemed to have taken the blow harder than she'd initially thought. He was now down on hands and knees, breathing heavily, though he looked more winded and dazed than hurt.

Jade began to focus on casting while Guy moved in on Gnome. The sentience threw another Ground Dasher at Jade, forcing him to stop casting and retreat to a safer position. Guy was close to Gnome, but the sentience was too close to Natalia while she was casting for his liking, and so he decided to start luring it to a more suitable distance. He let out another Demon Fang to catch its attention as he was still too far away, himself, to use a close-range arte to get its attention. Gnome slammed its paw against the earth in response. Gnome turned to face Guy as the swordsman made to draw it away. Guy tried to take a step, but couldn't. Looking down, he scowled.

His right foot was encased in solid rock. When Gnome slammed the ground, it had used its power to raise a chunk of rock around the swordsman's leg, keeping him immobile. Grinning deeply and through narrowed eyes, Gnome began to charge him, its claw raised and glowing golden. The battleaxe was formed and coming.

Guy wasn't sure how do get away, and from her desire to protect him, Natalia quickly moved in front of Guy, ignoring Tear and Luke for the moment. She called, "O unyielding aegis... _Barrier!_" and enveloped herself with the fonic protection. She raised her bow and began firing arrows to try and slow down the sentience, but Gnome was moving too quickly and its attack was too powerful to stop just by shooting its arm.

"Natalia, get out of the way!" Guy cried, trying to grab her and pull her of of Gnome's charge, but she was standing out of his reach. He desperately began pulling at his foot, but it wouldn't come loose.

She replied, "Don't you remember?"

_"I could have thrown your life away!"_

_"And I was expected to throw yours away?!"_

"I'm not prepared to accept that expectation, either," she smiled sadly, raising her bow defensively.

"_Natalia!_" he screamed, but Gnome had already swung. To protect the Hodsman, she had stood before the sentience, willing to take the full force of the attack to give him more of a chance to live.

The battleaxe connected with her bow, and the moment it did, the explosion of second fonons burst forth from Gnome's claw. The force of it went off devastatingly at point-blank range to Natalia, and Kimlasca's beloved princess was blown backwards through the air, tumbling like a ragdoll, bouncing once, twice, and on the third time coming to rest face-down, unmoving. Luke only then managed to stand up and gain his bearings, startled into full consciousness by a friend's echoing scream. He reached back and pulled out the Orb of Lorelei with his right hand, the Key shakily being held in his left.

But it was not on Luke that the scream had the most effect. Guy watched, first in horror, then in anger, as Natalia's body was blown limply to the ground of the Ruins. His body trembled as his grip on his blade and sheath tightened intensely.

"You bastard..." he growled at the sentience. He tried to step forward, but the stone was still clasping his foot. "I'm going to-"

"No, you're not," Gnome said simply. It stepped forward since Guy could not, now within range of striking with the fonic claw. "The problem with you all is that you continually underestimate the true power of a sentience. You don't have the strength to get through my defense." Gnome raised the battleaxe, now glowing bright golden, and swung at Guy.

"So I'm lacking strength, am I?!" Guy raged, hands growing sore from how tightly he was holding his weapon. He raised the sword and sheath again to block the attack. "You want to see how strong I _really _am?!" And in the instant the axe connected, Guy released a sudden burst of fonic power which knocked Gnome off balance and dissipated the fonons gathered in the claw. The burst even had the added beneficial effect of blowing the stone away from his foot, freeing him. The claw connected against the sword and sheath harmlessly, no explosion being triggered as Guy had blown the fonons away.

"Insolent mortal!" Gnome cried angrily. "Don't think for a second-"

"I'm not!" Guy howled. "This is already _beyond _thinking! You hurt someone I care about... so I'm going to send you back to the fon belt whether you want to go or not!"

On the sidelines, Anise started cheering from Jade's side. "He admitted it! He admitted it! He admitted it!"

Jade didn't reply as he was already running over to Natalia to check on her vital signs. He knelt over her, frowning for a moment. Then he looked up at Guy and saw the swordsman pressing the attack against Gnome and smiled faintly.

For Guy was indeed pressing the attack! Gnome tried to cut into him again and again, but each swing of the shovel-claw met with an immediate dodge from Guy, who then retaliated with multiple blows from inside Gnome's guard. Guy was pulling every arte he could think of at every chance he got: Tiger Blade, Nihil Blade Tempest, Soaring Light Spear... and they all seemed to be doing some damage, a fact Jade attributed to the fact that Luke was walking slowly up to the sentience, holding the Orb of Lorelei out to try and weaken its fonic protection. The real finale, though, came from Guy's onslaught.

"_Final Cross!_" Guy cried, again ripping the crossing attack into Gnome's body. With the Orb close enough to wreak havoc on Gnome's fonic protection, the Final Cross actually stung Gnome, but Guy wasn't satisfied with stopping there. "O noble conflagration..." he chanted, leaping in the air in a tower of flame as he turned the high-intensity fonon concetration of Final Cross into a further powerful attack. He whirled the fire around him, crying, "Incinerate all!" with the sword pointed before him and cut into Gnome as he hit the ground. "_Razing Phoenix!_" he howled, summoning a rich wealth of fifth fonons and forming them into an enormous aerial arte. The flame was brilliantly hot, and it ripped through and around Gnome, turning the sentience's powerful fur to ash as Gnome screeched in agony, for not only did the flame burn off its protection, but it had torn through its body, as well, dealing it heavy damage interiorly.

"Absolutely impossible!" Gnome cried angrily. It tried to attack in retaliation but it could already feel that the drain from the Orb and the interior damage to its manifested body would force it to return to the fon belt. "I will... destroy you! _Gaian Crush!_"

"That's it!" Jade cried. "Luke, grab Tear, Anise, grab Natalia!" Guy was about to ask why, but the Ruins had begun to shake. Gnome, in defeat, was bringing the desert down atop them. "Guy, our exit!"

"R-right!" he managed to say, pulling away from Gnome and running to safer ground equidistant from Tear and Natalia. He pulled the cube out from his pocket. "Jade!" he cried over the rumbling. "Natalia! Is she-"

"She'll be fine," Jade said quickly. "She was lucky. The Barrier she raised before the attack hit her saved her life, but she's still extremely hurt." He took a long step as a fissure was opening up near him and he had to step over it to get to Guy. "Anise, Luke, hurry!"

Anise got to Guy and Jade with Natalia in tow. Guy looked at Natalia anxiously, and mentally berated himself. She was cut in a number of places, not bleeding badly, but severely bruised. Her clothing was torn badly, though luckily not indecently. Guy took her from Tokunaga and knelt on the ground with her. His free hand was holding the cube, waiting to press it against the ground.

But Luke hadn't arrived, yet. He was still struggling with Tear, and his lingering injuries kept him from proceeding quickly. Fissures were also starting to open up around him. "Anise, go help them quickly!" Jade ordered, and in the heat of the moment she made no smart replies in response.

Anise got to the two of them, having to hop over only one fissure on the way there, but two on the way back when she was carrying Tear, leaving Luke to struggle to the party as he carried the Orb in his hand. She set the hymnist down within range of where Guy said the glyph would appear.

"The glyph will spread over your body as long as part of you is touching it," he cried over the rumbling. The ceiling was now falling in several places, though thankfully not over them, yet. "Luke, hurry!"

The young noble was getting closer, now, but the rumbling was increasing and every step was getting more difficult. More and more fissures were opening up, and Luke was now stumbling, stumbling... but getting closer with every misstep. A large chunk of the ceiling fell near him, and he redoubled his efforts, but his body was crying in pain.

And then the largest tremor yet stuck, and Luke was thrown so far off balance, he almost overshot the glyph. The tremor caused a large fissure to open right beside the party, and Anise cried out in surprise. The tremor was so strong, it knocked Luke to the ground, and he gasped as his arm fell into a shallow fissure and his hand closed on nothing. He had dropped the Orb.

His foot was in the space the glyph could occupy, and he heard Guy cry over the rumble, "Okay! We're going!"

"_No!_" Luke screamed back. "_Wait!_" but he didn't think Guy could hear him. He dug his arm as deep into the crevice as he could manage, but he couldn't see into it as he had to keep his head flat against the ground so he could get his shoulder lower. Then, it was there! He felt the Orb, knew exactly where it was! He pulled up for a second so he could approach it from a better angle. He reached back into the fissure.

Guy looked up, and saw the ceiling coming down atop them. To wait any longer would mean to be crushed by the ceiling. Guy pressed the cube against the ground just as Luke reached into the fissure as far as he could. He didn't feel the Orb this time. What he did feel was a familiar, strange sensation. The glyph carried him out of the Ruins.

On the surface, Luke looked with disbelief into his hand. It was empty. Whether it was from the realization of what had happened or from the nausea Guy had said he might experience from the fontech, Luke suddenly felt sick. He threw up on the sands.

He had left the Orb of Lorelei, buried and forever irretrievable, in the destroyed Zao Ruins.


	15. You Just Might

"Anise, get a Life bottle out for Tear."

"Right."

"Guy, move your hand so I can get this bandaging onto Natalia."

"Yeah, good idea."

"Colonel, did you move the Life Bottles?"

"No, there're still there buried under the Apple Gels."

"Oh, got one!"

"Once Tear's roused sufficiently, we'll get her to bring Natalia around."

"How hurt is she?"

"Broken arm, severe bruising, but Tear should be able to cure both of those. With the exception of her left arm, which I'd like to wrap quickly, the Barrier seems to have prevented cutting, so she won't bleed to death. Well, externally, anyway. Stop glaring at me, Guy."

"Then don't say it like that!"

"My apologies. Luke, can you… Luke?" Jade only noticed Luke when he heard the unpleasant sound of retching coming from the sand dune over. "Luke, what's the matter?"

Luke coughed and didn't answer right away. When he walked back to them, it was with a strange expression on his face, one that was a combination of sadness and relief.

"Okay, got her!" Anise announced as Tear slowly sat up, woozily trying to catch her breath. Anise positioned Tokunaga so Tear could lean against him until she got her bearings.

"Thank you," she said softly as her head stopped spinning. "Where are we?"

"Back in the desert," Anise informed her. "On the surface, I mean. Guy beat Gnome."

"We all did," he said quickly. "Tear, whenever you're ready, can you help Natalia? She nearly killed herself to protect me…"

"Guy, while I appreciate you holding the bandage roll for me in your spare hand, if you don't unclench your fist, I won't be able to wrap it around her any longer."

"…sorry, Jade."

"Luke, you didn't answer my question," Jade commented as he finished wrapping Natalia's arm. "What's the matter?" Luke opened his mouth as if he were trying to answer, but flopped back onto the sand, instead. He stared up at the sky, a hand on his stomach as though trying to suppress a wave of nausea.

Tear shook her head. "Thank you, Anise, I'm all right, now." She walked carefully to Natalia and commanded, "Return this soul from the abyss of death. _Resurrection._" A familiar golden light enveloped Natalia, and when a shining, ethereal feather mixed with her fonons, her eyes fluttered open. At first she tried to get up quickly, but when Guy held her down and she realized they weren't battling Gnome any longer, she settled back against him.

"What's going on?" the princess asked curiously.

"My same question precisely, Natalia," Jade said. "Luke, if you don't elaborate, I'm going to have Anise pry the answer out of you." Anise looked down proudly from her spot on Tokunaga.

There was that same strange grin on his lips, playing against a terrible sadness in his eyes. It was as though he wanted to be happy and sad at the same time. He whispered, "The Orb."

"What did you say, Luke?" Tear asked, walking over to him. "Speak up."

"In that last tremor when we left," he said, his voice shaking a little. "I dropped the Orb."

"_Luke!_" Tear gasped, immediately kneeling down next to him with an unreadable expression in her eyes.

"Luke, you're not serious, right?" Guy asked quickly, watching his movements carefully.

"I wish I was," he answered. "I know we needed that for Undine… I'm sorry, everyone I'm so sorry…" He shivered, and a brief look of pain flashed across his face.

"Luke, are you all right?" Tear immediately asked, concerned.

"I feel a little sick from that glyph," he admitted. "Please don't worry."

Tear held a hand against his forehead. He had a fever. "Do you think you're going to be all right?"

"I think it doesn't matter," he answered calmly, looking away from them sadly. "I think I'm going to die…"

"Luke!" Natalia said quickly, though her condition kept her from putting any real force into her words. "You mustn't give up so easily."

"Jade," Luke sighed. "None of your plans involved saving me without using the Orb, did they?"

"None that I've come up with to this point did," he admitted as he toyed with his glasses.

"We'll come up with something," Tear said forcefully. "We won't give up."

"That's right," Guy added with assurance. "No one's ready to quit, yet."

"I don't… want to quit," Luke mumbled. "I just want to be ready."

"Luke, suck it up!" Anise cried from her doll's head. "I haven't seen you this mopey since Asch was around!" There was a brief, unreadable look on Natalia's face, but Anise hadn't seen it. "Since when are you such a quitter?"

"I'm not quitting!" he snapped back. "I want to live! But I know you guys are-"

"Unbelievable," Tear sighed. "Did you actually think we were going to get upset at you because you lost the Orb?" She shook her hand; it had fallen asleep, but she was getting feeling back into it, now. "It doesn't matter if we lost it; we can still beat Undine without it."

"But then what are we going to do about the fourth fonons?" Luke asked, blinking up at her.

"Jade will think of something," Guy answered easily, sending a grin at the soldier.

Jade sighed, but there was a casual smile on his face. "Must I think of all the plans for you, Guy?"

"Hey, I came up with the teleport glyph," Guy reminded him. "Now it's your turn to think of something."

"Very well," Jade sighed, rubbing his temples mockingly with a single hand. "I shall come up with a solution while we're en route."

Luke tried to raise himself up, but started coughing furiously the moment he raised himself up on his elbows. He dropped back down to the sand. "Luke, what's wrong?" Tear asked.

"I'm just… it's still that I'm a little off from the glyph, I think," he answered, though it was plainly obvious he was focusing on not throwing up again.

"I suppose a rest here wouldn't kill us," Jade offered in a rare display of obvious niceness. "Though the heat eventually might."

"Let's not start with this again," Guy groaned, remembering a trip to Mount Zaleho.

Tear brought the party's mood up by singing a Revitalize to keep their bodies fresh. Then she returned to Luke's side and sat down next to when he lay. His breathing was steady, but it was about half a pant short of being laborious. "How are you feeling?" she asked after she was certain the Revitalize had suitable time to affect him.

"Not a whole lot better… but a little bit, I guess," he answered somewhat uninformatively.

"Did the Revitalize help?" she asked. "I'll sing it again for you, if it did something."

Luke shook his head, then stopped immediately as he realized it wasn't helping his ill feeling at all. "For some reason, I don't feel as strong as I usually do when you sing it."

"You aren't usually sick when I sing it, either," she pointed out.

"Guess you're right," he smiled, but the expression quickly faded into one of concentration. Tear's heart went out to him as it was plainly obvious he was trying to resist the pain in his body.

It took two hours of laying on the sands above the Zao Ruins before Luke felt healthy enough to walk back to the Albiore. Tear helped him to his feet, and the group began the trek back to the aircraft. After a while, Luke grumbled, "I can't believe I was the only one affected by that glyph."

"Oh, you weren't," Jade said lazily. "It affected all of us quite powerfully."

"What do you mean?" Luke blinked.

"Tear should be able to feel this, as well," the colonel said, passing the question along. "She could explain."

Tear sighed as she narrowed her eyes at Jade. Turning back to Luke, she said, "We're feeling fonic interference effects from the glyph," she said, and with an extra glare at Guy, she added, "an _unmentioned _side-effect."

"Sorry!"

"Fonic interference?" Luke asked. "So you can't cast? But you cast Revitalize _and _Resurrection since we've been up here." He suddenly stumbled and Tear caught him to help him steady himself.

"Watch your step, Luke," cautioned Tear before she began to explain. "The effects we're feeling are preventing us from getting an accurate sense of where, precisely, fonons are around us, but we can still pull at them blindly and use them for artes."

"It's like sticking your hand into a bag of candy blindfolded," Guy explained. "You don't know exactly what you're going to pull out, but as long as you reach in and grab enough, odds are you'll get what you need."

"So you can still cast by just drawing in fonons, even though you don't know where they are, exactly," Luke stated. "That must be a hassle."

"It makes higher-level fonic artes more of a nuisance, it's true," Jade said, keeping up his casual pace at a smooth stride even over sand. "But the only real problem comes from sensing and locating fonons, not in manipulating them once we have them. As long as we draw in more than normal, we should get a good enough balance for casting."

"Sounds convenient," Luke said. "Hey, there's the Albiore…" he added as they came over another dune. He wanted to speak with a little more enthusiasm, but his body was just too sick and sluggish to react. He felt the back of his neck subtly, but couldn't feel an abnormal temperature. He supposed that could mean his hand was abnormally hot, too. Could you even _have _a full-body fever?

* * *

Noelle met them as they entered the Albiore. "Welcome back!" she said happily. "The mission must have been a success. The flightstone is charging again!"

"We're glad to hear it," Jade said customarily. "How long until we can fly?"

"While we can fly at 60 percent, I'd like to wait until at least 80 before we take off," she said slowly. "The flightstone doesn't usually charge much while in flight."

"How long will that take?" Jade asked, posing the question more directly.

"I can have you in Grand Chokmah by about two hours to noon, tomorrow; it's almost evening, now." she said. "Is that good enough?"

"It will do most splendidly," Natalia answered for Jade, worried that the colonel might answer with less-than-acceptable bluntness.

"Okay," Noelle replied. "Go ahead and rest up, then. You have an early morning, tomorrow."

"Luke?" Tear said to get his attention.

"Yeah, Tear?"

"Bedtime. Now."

"Hey, hang on a second! Let go of me!"

Guy almost collapsed of laughter as the replica was dragged off to the beds by Tear. Anise shot a sneaky glance in his direction. There was obviously something still on her mind. "So, Guy," she started off sneakily, her voice smooth. "When you and Gnome were exchanging words before you finished it off…"

"Oh, geez, I have to go check on the flightstone!" he said quickly, beginning to blush.

"No, you don't," Noelle said. "It's charging fine. It's already at about 20 percent."

"I meant I wanted to watch it charging!" he said hastily.

"You can't do that, either," Noelle laughed. "The charging process isn't visible. It takes some delicate sensors to even tell that it's doing anything."

"R-really?" Guy blanched, grinning nervously.

"Yes, and you know all this already," the pilot replied. "You were walked through all this before, remember?"

"O-oh, right, right," he said softly, rubbing the back of his head. "I guess it's just been a long day. I should go to sleep…"

"Oh, I think it would be much better to give Tear and Luke a little time alone, don't you?" Jade said indifferently. "Besides, Anise seems to want words with you."

"Yes," Natalia agreed. "What's the matter, Guy?"

Anise quickly moved to Natalia and grabbed her arm. With a sneaky look on her face, she leaned up and whispered into her ear. Natalia blushed, and with each passing second, the blush grew deeper and deeper. "Guy…" she finally said. He couldn't read her expression but her eyes looked slightly wet.

Guy looked at the other three people in the room. After a moment, he cried, "Will you guys get out of here?!" not out of anger but from embarrassment. Noelle complied immediately, grinning at Natalia as she passed. Anise didn't move at all, instead standing perfectly still and watching every move the two made. Jade walked out of the room, and as he passed the girl, he picked her up, hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her out the door.

"Colonel!" she shrieked. "_Boo!_ Put me down!"

"Anise, you know bending over to put you down will throw out my back."

"How can you say that while you're _carrying me?!_"

* * *

Tear pushed Luke (gently) down on the bed while she walked quickly to the sink to get him a glass of water. Despite his protestations, she was adamant in getting him to stay laying down. "Luke, don't put up such a fuss," she said shortly, though her tone was laced with concern. "You're obviously not well right now." 

"What about you?" he replied, raising his torso up while she was too far to push him back down. "You were unconscious for half of the battle with Gnome! You can't be feeling very well, either."

"I'm stiff, not wounded," she pointed out, setting down a tall glass of water on the bedside table. Healing artes restored the body to full health, but they generally didn't heal residual stiffness. Only time would cure that. "And," she commented, still intent on getting him to lay down, "you're apparently quite sick."

He chuckled slightly. "I've been quite sick for the whole journey," he reminded her, but the second the words were out of his mouth, he instantly regretted it. "I mean... you know..."

"Idiot," she muttered, sitting on the side of the bed as he lay down. "I know that."

He swung his body around so he was sitting next to her, his mind racing with a thousand thoughts a minute but his mouth unable to keep up with the torrent. She glared at him to get him to lay back down, but he didn't comply. "Tear... I meant to say... I mean-"

"That you're prepared to die if you have to," Tear summarized quickly, looking away from him.

"I don't want to!" he said resolutely, his eyes blazing with the will to live as he looked at her. She still didn't look back. "But... if I have to..."

"Being prepared to die is the same thing as accepting that you're going to," she answered, a touch of anger in her voice. "You should be doing what Guy told you to do a long time ago: fighting to live with everything you have."

Now Luke found himself becoming irritated. "You think I don't know that?!" he burst, and she found it within herself to look him in the eye. "When I was prepared to die on the Tower of Rem or at Eldrant... there were _reasons _for that! I didn't want to die there, but at least that had a purpose!"

Tear was hesitant to admit it, but she did managed to whisper, "That was… just like when I was using the Passage Rings."

"Exactly like that," Luke continued. "But there's no reason for me to die this time... my death won't help anyone in any way. So I'm going to_ live. _Even without the Orb. I'm not ready to just give up, just like the others said they weren't ready to quit."

"It won't be easy from here on," she said matter-of-factly, her mouth working long before her heart could stop her. "Especially not if you don't get this extra sickness of yours from the glyph out of your system quickly. You'll be a lot easier to hit on the battlefield."

"That's all right," he said with a smile. "You'll heal me just like you always have, right?"

"If you'll buy me time to cast, I suppose."

"Haven't I always?" he asked, his grin widening.

"I guess you have," she replied coyly. "Though I wouldn't let that go to your head, if I were you."

"I know. You won't tolerate carelessness."

It was her turn to smile. "We've come entirely too far to be stopped by Undine at this point."

"Yeah," Luke replied. He reached over to the bedside table and took a long swig of the water. It felt refreshingly cool, but his body still felt warm.

Tear teetered on the edge of the bed, as though caught between choices of what movements she could make. Then she seemed more courageous, so she leaned against Luke and wrapped her arms around his, hugging it close to her body. He felt warm. "You know... what I said at Eldrant..." she said softly.

He grinned, a little embarrassed. "I heard you, Tear."

She flushed. "I meant it."

"...I know. …so do I."

* * *

Natalia's expression was unreadable.

Well, it was unreadable for Guy, but then, Guy didn't have much in-depth experience with women. Well, _in-depth_ might not be the proper choice of words; he'd been in depth with women, but they were mostly corpses at that point.

And thus the problem.

Oh, he could read people fairly well, it's true. But when it came to affairs of the heart (and, he realized with a funny feeling, that was what this had become), he had absolutely no prior experience to fall back on. It was hard to be smooth and in control when he was only now getting used to the feeling of a woman being near him.

But he tried, anyway. "Are you... uh... all right, Natalia?"

At length, she slowly replied, "I don't know how much of what Anise said I wish to believe… or of what to make of that which I do believe."

He swallowed hard to clear the dryness of embarrassment from his throat, then said, "Why don't you tell me what she said, then, and I'll tell you what you can believe?"

Natalia related just a short portion of the event, but Guy got the picture.

_Gnome cried angrily. "Don't think for a second-"_

_"I'm not!" Guy howled. "This is already beyond thinking! You hurt someone I care about... so I'm going to send you back to the fon belt whether you want to go or not!"_

"Oh," Guy said, red creeping up his face. "That... um... Yeah, that... that actually happened. Word for word, I think."

"Guy..." Natalia said, trailing off.

"C-count on Anise to remember something like that in vivid detail, huh?" he said, sweatdropping. The princess turned away from him and moved to the window. She looked out over the horizon, holding almost perfectly still. Her arms were holding her own torso tightly. "Natalia... are you all right?" He edged closer, a single tiny step at a time.

"I... don't know," she admitted. Her voice was wavering.

"What's the matter?" he asked sincerely.

"I do not know if I can explain it," she whispered.

"I'll wait until you can."

"Guy... I'm still embarrassed to say it," she said shakily.

"I wouldn't judge you, Natalia. You can talk," he assured her.

She suddenly left the window and ploughed into his torso, throwing her arms around him and trying not to cry into him. "Guy... I care about you... too," she forced herself to say, knowing that he at least deserved to hear this much. When she felt his arms reciprocating the hug and holding her against him in return, she continued, "But... but I... just don't know..."

"What don't you know?" he asked softly.

"While we were journeying," she managed to say levelly, pulling away from Guy and walking back toward the window, her back to him as she continued, "and I was... in love with... or... infatuated?... with Asch, and then he died... and now I've moved on so quickly and I feel as strongly for you as I did for him but if I can change the object of my affections so quickly then it doesn't mean anyth-" and she stopped talking because, although she had finally gotten into a frame of mind where she could state everything in a long string, Guy had come up from behind her and raised a single finger across her mouth to silence her.

"I understand," he said. "You're worried that whatever we have now will degrade the feelings you had for Asch."

"No… I have moved on from Asch," she said resolutely, turning to look at him. "But you've seen how... obsessive I was over him. And now for that to be completely over after a year?"

"Natalia..."

"My affection means nothing," she said miserably, "if they can be swayed so quickly."

"No," Guy said, shaking his head. A little embarrassed, he nevertheless went on, "Your affection means something to me. Besides, a year is a long time. It's okay to let people fall from the forefront of your mind after a while. You'll always care about him as part of your past."

"As a dear childhood friend?" Natalia whispered. _Or as a lost opportunity?_

"Whatever you want," he replied. "But Asch wouldn't want you hung up on him for the rest of your life. He'd want you to stay happy and kind; the same person you were when he knew you. The same person who made me care about her now."

She rested against his chest, head turned to the side, faintly hearing his heart beating against her ear. "You are aware you have some of the… _cheesiest_ lines known to Kimlasca?"

He looked down at her. "They work, don't they?"

She leaned up to him as he leaned down in response. "Let's pretend they didn't."

And in an instant, there it was: all the barriers between them were finally broken down, their hearts and minds exposed for the other to see at their leisure, with no sense of false pride between them. Their lips were pressed together in a short, meaningful kiss, and Guy refused to let go of her when they broke apart.

"Are you worried about your affections changing suddenly?" he asked.

"Not anymore."

* * *

"Boo, boo, boo, boo, _boo!_" 

"If you don't stop kicking your legs, I might just drop you on the floor accidentally, Anise."

"Colonel...!" she whined, long and drawn out. "That was going to get good!"

"Not if you were sitting there watching them, Anise," Jade replied, calmly walking to the kitchen.

"They would have said_ something!_" Anise grumbled. "They wouldn't have even noticed me. I would have been small and not bothersome in the corner."

"Well, you would have been small, anyway."

"Hey! Colonel, stop that," she growled. "You already ruined all my fun, you don't have to tease me, too."

"Why, Anise, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you were perturbed at me," he answered, a bit of aloofness in his voice.

"I _am _perturbed at you," she answered. "I wanted to hear them confess their love to each other! _Oh, dearest Natalia... Yes, my darling Guy?... I love you, say you'll marry me!... Oh, yes, Guy, come and be the king of my country!_"

Jade laughed as he set her down on the kitchen floor gently. "I believe you're missing a few stages of courtship in the middle, aren't you?"

"Not for an epic romantic story!" Anise answered quickly. "Besides, they've been flirting _forever_, Colonel!"

"Oh? So you've gotten bored of watching them, then?" he asked, grinning slightly as he sat down into a chair at the table.

Anise replied, "No, I just wish they'd hurry up and get it over with and confess, already!"

The colonel chuckled softly. "It's not in Guy's nature to confess to a woman, you know. For that matter, it's not in his nature to be _around _women." He removed his glasses and started rubbing the lenses. "And Natalia's been raised to know how to love all, but not put love for one person over love for another. It's not surprising it takes them so long to admit affections."

Anise gaped. "Colonel, you really understand this stuff, don't you?"

Shrugging, Jade replaced his glasses on his head and leaned back in his chair. "It's all basic human psychology, Anise," he explained. "People are very easy to predict, sometimes. Especially young people."

"...are you saying I'm easy to predict?" Anise blinked, raising an eyebrow very slightly.  
"Not particularly," he replied, the edge of his mouth turning up. "I suppose that's one of the few things I like about you, Anise. You have a tendency to surprise me every now and again."

"Only a few things?" Anise exclaimed, looking downcast. "That's disappointing, Colonel."

"Well..." he sighed softly, looking away from her. "I suppose... in the interest of fairness... I... _prefer _your company to anyone else within the group."

"_Colonel!_" Anise gasped happily. "Do you mean that?"

"No," he replied with a straight face. "Can you get me a glass of human blood from the cooler?"

"Ooh... you're being sarcastic through that whole sentence, right?" she frowned at him.

Laughing he stood up and walked to the window, stretching. "I suppose I am. I think you're very tolerable, Anise."

"Colonel!" she whined, hopping over to him at the window quickly and latching onto his arm a little more tightly than usual. "_Tolerable _is the best I get?"

"Would you prefer 'acceptable?'" he asked wryly.

"Oh, fine," she huffed, leaving him at the window to go sit down on one of the chairs. "I should know better than to look for reassurances from someone like you."

Jade couldn't help but raise an eyebrow like at this. "Do I fit into an archetype, Anise?"

She sighed. "Never mind, Colonel."

He stood at the window for several more moments, knowing without looking that she was bent over the table, her head resting on crossed arms. It was very rare for her to show her true emotions; most of what she revealed, her happiness and cuteness, Jade knew, was more a front designed to make her life easier. After all, her cute and happy act had kept her working as Mohs's perfect spy for years. He supposed that it was because it was just the two of them- three, counting Tokunaga- that she was being so forward with her feelings, revealing herself in a rare sad, vulnerable mood. Several minutes passed as Jade waited for her to say something, but she didn't say anything else. Fixing his glasses yet again, Jade said, "You're thinking about Ion, aren't you?"

Anise flushed furiously. He hid his grin; she was still such an easy read. "N-no, I'm not!" she protested.

"From all indications, Natalia has now landed Guy. Tear has already paired off with Luke, the poor girl. You're the only girl left," he pointed out rather bluntly.

"Colonel, stop," she said softly. "I'm not thinking about that."

"Lying will also get you nowhere, Anise," he replied.

"I'm not...! ...not..."

"Anise," Jade said, his eyes narrowed a little. "In your challenge against Shadow, it was Ion you saw, wasn't it?"

"...yes," she replied softly, and Jade kicked himself for not having talked to her about it sooner.

"And now that he's fresh in your mind and our other two women have paired themselves off..."

"I'm not some helpless, hopeless, romantic loony!" she snapped, her hands clenched tightly.

Jade leaned over her from behind the chair, his hair falling over her head as he bent close to her ear. "Yes, you are."

Anise scowled and immediately made to stand up, but the moment she was away from the chair, Jade put an arm across her tightly and held her against him, her back pressing against him.

"Colonel, let me go!"

"I'd rather talk to you, Anise, if it's all the same to you."

"...you _want _to talk to me...?"

"Yes. Because if I don't, you're very liable to blame yourself for any number of things."

"Colonel!" she protested again.

"Such as," he continued calmly, "blaming yourself that you don't have a rich boyfriend right now because you think you're responsible for what happened to Ion."

Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes. "I _am _responsible for what happened to Ion. It was my-"

"It was _Mohs's_ fault more than it was yours," Jade argued. "Don't blame yourself for something you had no control over." Her mouth opened and closed multiple times, but she couldn't bring herself to actually speak. "And Anise... you aren't the only one among us who has lost someone she loved."

Anise's eyes widened, wet with unshed tears, and she remembered everything that had happened to Natalia when Asch died at Eldrant. She went limp against the colonel's body.

"But even still," she said quietly, "Natalia wasn't to blame for Asch's death at all. And you can't say I wasn't partly responsible for letting everything happen to Ion..."

"Anise, you did everything you could to prevent it," Jade reasoned. "If anyone is to blame, it's the rest of us for not paying more attention to your behaviour. You have quite a career as an actress ahead of you, if you like." Here he looked down at her, poking her slightly so she looked up and made eye contact. "But remember: we wanted you to come back to us after Ion died. Or we came back to you, if you prefer."

Anise looked somewhat confused, but more hopeful than anything. "Colonel... "

"We all share some degree of care for you, Anise," he went on. "I'm not very earnest often, but... you're somewhat more than _tolerable_, if I have to be truthful."

"Where do I rank?" she asked cautiously.

"Oh… at least at preferable, and rising by the day," he admitted, though he didn't look at her when he said it.

"Colonel!" Anise cried, and she turned around and jumped him in a flying hug. Jade actually found it in him to hug her back, and so she half-hugged, half-hung off his shoulders, her head buried into the crook of his neck as he hugged her back warmly, holding her aloft, her feet dangling off the ground.

"No more blaming yourself, Anise," he said, even making a warm statement feel like an order.

"Tear made me promise that, too," she grinned a little. "I'll try and keep it this time."

"Good," the Colonel said. He was ready to break the hug, but Anise hadn't let go, yet.

"So," she said slyly. "Since I rate _preferably_, is that a request for _marriage_, yet, Colonel?"

He laughed. "I'm afraid you're much too young for that, still, Anise," he replied, a genuine smile on his face.

"Ha!" she laughed. "Just you wait! In ten years, I'm going to come back perfect. _Just for you_, I'll fill out like Tear and wear skimpy clothing like Natalia!" After she spoke, she blinked up at Jade. He was unusually quiet; no response or reply of any kind, not even a chuckle. She felt a sudden chill creep up her spine. Turning her head, she saw Natalia standing in the doorway, radiating an aura of _fury_.

"My wardrobe consists of _skimpy clothing, _does it?" Natalia growled.

"N-no, no, no!" Anise gasped, leaping off the Colonel, who immediately gathered himself up and adjusted his collar.

Guy strolled over to him casually and whispered, "I didn't know it was like you to give out hugs like that, Jade… and talking about marriage? Getting soft in your old age?"

He replied, shaking his head, "I'm afraid not, sorry to disappoint you. And if you're planning on spreading any unfavourable rumours about this… remember, Guy, dead men tell no tales." Guy shivered. They watched Natalia, who was now following Anise in a brisk, royal walk through the kitchen as Anise tried her best to sweet-talk Natalia out of her half-teasing rage.

"So," Natalia glared as she bore down on the girl, "when I'm not around, you merely think of me as some dolled-up, dressed-down strumpet?"

"No!" Anise answered quickly. "How can you be dolled-up and dressed-down at the same time?"

"_Well!_"

"Ah, I didn't mean that like it sounded!" Anise cried.

"You see?" Guy said to Jade. "This is why I think women are scary."

"Oh, come, Guy, it's all very interesting," the soldier answered. "Besides, you should be flattered that Anise wants to wear clothing in imitation of your girlfriend."

Guy almost stepped back, stunned. "I didn't... you- wait, how did you know?"

"I didn't," he said casually. "You just told me. Oh, Anise?"

"Can it wait?" Anise called back.

"I thought you'd like to know that you're officially teasing Guy's girlfriend, that's all," the colonel said with a grin along his face.

"_Really?!_" Anise squealed back, turning and jumping to Natalia in a large hug. "_Finally!_" The princess was now blushing furiously.

"Guy, you've told him already?" Natalia looked over at him.

"I'm not sure what just happened, to be honest with you..." Guy gaped.

"Told him what?" Tear asked, blinking as she walked into the room.

"Tear?" Guy welcomed the intrusion to change the topic. He noticed that he'd only just cut off Anise, as well. "Where's Luke?"

"He's still feeling sick, so I had him go to sleep," she replied.

"Was it by his own choice?" Guy smirked.

"I may or may not have fallen back on Nightmare in the end," she said casually.

"How is he feeling?" Natalia asked, calmed down considerably now that she was no longer the centre of attention.

"He's very warm," she replied. "It's as though he has a fever across his whole body. I think he's also been a little nauseous, as well."

"Is he going to be in any condition to fight Undine?" Guy asked.

"Yes, it would be rather difficult to face it without having Luke on the frontline," Jade admitted.

"I'm not sure," Tear admitted. "We'll have to see when we get there."

Sighing, Jade sat down at one of the chairs at the table. He rested his elbows on it and set his chin against his hands for support. "Losing the Orb has put us not only at a disadvantage for saving Luke, but also a severe tactical disadvantage against the sentiences."

"What do you mean, Colonel?" Anise asked, plopping down in the seat next to him.

"The sentiences manifest themselves on Auldrant when there is a high enough concentration of a particular fonon type. Fourth fonons and Undine, for example," Jade said quickly. "Guy, you can carry it from here."

"Yeah, yeah," the swordsman replied with a faint sigh. "So I guess what you're getting at is that a sentience's strength in battle is proportional to the amount of fonons that are in that area."

"Yes," Tear agreed, "that would make a good deal of sense. And as the number of fonons in an area decrease, a sentience loses power."

"The inverse is true as well," Natalia reasoned, "which is why we could defeat the first sentience of a pair with only four people instead of all six of us. Efreet and Rem, for instance."

"That works," Anise said. "Because Undine was still here, Efreet's fifth fonons were counteracted by ambient water fonons. But because we beat Efreet, we absorbed a lot of fifth fonons. So the world's balance is skewed."

"It wouldn't matter right away," Jade informed them. "But over time, Undine and her fourth fonons would make the world colder, since there aren't enough fifth fonons to counteract the chill."

"So how is this a tactical disadvantage, Colonel?" Anise asked.

"We've had the Orb present when we defeated the first five sentiences," Tear reminded her. "The Orb was absorbing ambient fonons in the battlefield, which were predominantly the same as the sentience we were battling in each instance."

"Which means the Orb was working to weaken each sentience as we fought it," Guy sighed. "And now, without it, we have to take on Undine."

"And Undine's had more time to prepare itself for us than any other sentience, since we beat Efreet first," Anise grumbled. "Boo. This isn't going to be good at all."

The colonel frowned into his hands, thinking deeply. He eventually said aloud, "That Orb appeared to be of a very strange construction. Due to its ability to absorb all six original fonon types, I'd suggest it may have been created from the six fonons, not solely the seventh fonon. It would later have been imbued with the ability to convert absorbed fonons to the seventh fonon."

Tear's eyes narrowed a little as she began to think hard. "So what are you suggesting, Colonel?"

"The Orb of Lorelei must not have been made by Lorelei, itself. However, because it was originally made from the six fonons, any of the sentiences could have carried it up to the fon belt like Lorelei could," Jade surmised.

"So is it possible that the sentiences created the Orb for Lorelei in order to protect themselves?" Anise wondered. "And if so, couldn't we get them to make another one?"

Jade sighed, "No, I suppose if they could, they would have done it by now."

"If it's just made from the six fonons, though, couldn't you make one, yourself, Colonel?" Anise wondered, watching his reaction carefully to see if he was about to bluff them.

"I would doubt it, but I suppose there's always a possibility," Jade admitted. "It's more likely that I would need to be able to use all seven fonons, however, and I'm afraid even I can't do that."

There was silence around the table for a few moments. Tear and Guy sat down slowly, deep in thought. Natalia frowned as she took a seat on the far side of the table. "And what about Luke?" she asked. "What can we do for him, now?"

Jade drew a long breath. There was a time he'd speak without concern for their feelings, but it was actually paining him now to speak unpleasant truths so bluntly. "Likely… there's not very much we _can_ do for him," he said, much talking softer than he usually spoke. "I've had no ideas beyond that Orb. And that Orb may have also been necessary to protecting the sentiences."

"I won't accept that," Natalia replied with confidence. "We _will_ save everyone."

"Luke…" Anise said with more sadness than anger in her voice. "How could you drop it?"

"It wasn't his fault," Guy said, pained. "I was the one who took us out of the Ruins before he could get it back. From what he said on the walk back here, he almost had it before I…"

"It was not your fault, either, Guy," Natalia said gently, flashing him a somewhat sad smile. "It just happened. It will avail us nothing to worry about it, now. We must think of what we're going to do next."

"Unfortunately, that decision has been made for us, as well," Jade said. "We have to travel to Grand Chokmah, even without the Orb, and fight Undine."

"I don't like our odds in that battle," Guy said darkly. "Without the Orb, nothing will be straining Undine in the background. And with Luke sick, we might be down to just five of us in battle."

"But the longer we wait," Jade said, "the stronger Undine will get and the harder it will be to defeat it. It's rather worrisome, but necessary."

"You said it, Colonel," Anise frowned.

"It's just a bad situation in general," Tear sighed.

"Well, one good thing happened," Anise chirped happily.

"What's that?" the hymnist replied with eyebrow raised.

"Natalia and Guy are finally dating."

"_Really?_"

"Is there anyone you're _not _going to tell?" Natalia gaped at the girl.

"_Ooh!_ Where are Noelle and Mieu?!"

"I suppose not…"

* * *

_A voice said to pay attention. To watch and learn, that this was his past, his present, and his future._

* * *

"_You have created it?"_

"_It is the end result of all my ability in fonon manipulation…and all my skill with fonic hymns," she said, offering it on a bended knee. "It will hold your fonons in by exerting a constant pull on them from within you." _

_"Are you sure about this?"_

_"What good will my Score be to the world if the seventh sentience destroys the fon belt from within?"_

_"It would only be the sentiences, not the fon belt."_

_"Either way, the consequences would be dire."_

_"Then I will accept this offering; this is a gift from you who created this from your proficiency with all seven fonons in a way that I could not, having ability in only one. This is the symbol that I shall always use to remember our agreement. By what words will you invoke our pact? By what words will your people remember our pact?"_

_"By these: _Toue Rei Zue Kuroa Ryuo Toue Zue_..."_

* * *

_And then, swimming images. Natalia and Guy, back-to-back, fingers intertwined and smiling. Jade and Anise, standing together, the colonel looking casual but ready to jump ahead and protect the girl at a moment's notice if necessary. Then, the globe of Auldrant, but atop it were overlaid colours, the only vibrant one being hues of blue and cerulean that were hovering over Grand Chokmah. There was lingering red around Mount Zaleho, green around the Meggioran Highlands and so on, but none were anywhere near as bright or as wide as the mass of blue. Then, himself standing beside Tear, his arm over her shoulders, her head resting on his shoulder._

* * *

_And then… just one image. Undine—and how he knew it was the sentience he'd never seen before, he did not know—standing triumphantly before him, its hand having created a massive chunk of ice, shaped like a drill or a horn, incredibly sharp at the tip, flying at him, ripping into his stomach, and then—_

* * *

Luke jerked awake, gasping and grabbing for the glass of water Tear had left him. He drank deeply and felt a little calmer. He always had strange dreams when Tear used Nightmare to put him to sleep (she had found reason to do it twice before now, when he was more severely wounded on their travels). Unfortunately, he never remembered what he had dreamt about.

There was a lingering image of… ice? Or perhaps water. Luke realized he was still thirsty and decided that the image was not a memory of his dream, but rather his body reminding him he was parched.

The water felt cool and refreshing as it slipped down his throat.


	16. Die

He woke up with a hand on his forehead. He shifted to the side to get away from it, intent on sleeping for at least two (or three, or five) more hours, but the hand was unrelenting. Eyes closed tightly, as though refusing to accept any reality that existed outside his mindscape, he stubbornly raised his own hand to try and gently brush the offending body part away. The other hand, however, was apparently more stubborn than he, and it just reaffirmed its position on his head.

"Five more minutes," Luke grumbled drowsily, turning face-down so he could hide his face in the pillow. It was darker inside the soft headrest, he'd found.

"I gave you five more minutes two hours ago, remember?" Tear said informatively. "How are you feeling?"

Luke mumbled into his pillow, "Tired. Is it morning?"

"It's _afternoon,_" she replied, bemused.

This was enough to jerk the redhead awake, the sheets flying off him as he popped upright. "It's afternoon already? Why didn't you try to wake me up?"

"I did," Tear chuckled somewhat exhaustively. "Never mind. How's your illness? Are you still feeling nauseous?"

"Not especially," he answered honestly, a hand on his stomach as through threatening it to not start giving him trouble over the course of the day. "It's better than it was yesterday, at least. My head doesn't feel dizzy at all, either."

"I'm glad to hear it," she smiled. "It's a little late for breakfast, but we could try and take in a late lunch outside."

"Outside?" Luke blinked. "Just where are we?"

Tear flicked her head to send her long bang back into its usual positioning. "Noelle landed us a little way from Grand Chokmah. We found a large encampment here, so we landed on the outskirts."

"A large encampment?" Luke repeated, blinking up at her as she stood at the side of the bed. "How large?"

"Large enough to conceivably accommodate the population of Grand Chokmah," she replied quickly, not at all fazed by the scale of housing she was talking about.

Luke was a little more impressed. "_All _of Grand Chokmah?" he gaped. "That's enormous!"

"That's why we noticed it from the air," she informed him.

_"Whoa, whoa!" Anise had cried. "Look at _that!_"_

_"My," Jade hummed, more to himself than anyone. "Very impressive, Peony."_

_The encampment was effectively just rows and rows of tents, though certain tents were noticeably larger than others; namely, they assumed, ones for medical aid, food supplies and so forth. Peony's tent was one of the larger ones, as well, adorned with a smiling cartoon rappig that grinned up at the sky, eliciting a long, drawn-out sigh from the colonel. The tents were roughly arranged in rows so that there was always a large path for people to walk down. It was a testament to Sesemann, Jade assumed, that such a large setup of housing was set up so quickly, yet so orderly. He did note, however, that on the far end (which even he could barely see), work was still being done on expanding the space._

_"Man, Luke would have loved to have seen this," Guy commented, looking down with a tinge of excitement in his eyes. "We really should have woken him up."_

_"I tried," Tear said, looking out the window calmly, "but it'll be his loss."_

_"He is probably still feeling ill from the teleport fontech we used," Natalia offered. "It's hardly his fault. …though sleeping past noon is rather worrisome, even for him."_

_"I'm sure Luke will be fine," Noelle said cheerily. "In the meanwhile, how about we land on the outskirts of the camp? I'd like to do some routine tests on the flightstone, anyway, since it's only now working again."_

_"That will be fine," Jade decided for them. "I have some business I'd like to take care of within the camp, anyway."_

_"Oh?" Anise smiled slyly. "Worried about Peony?"_

_"Hardly," Jade answered, adjusting his glasses with practiced care. She waited for him to say more, but no additional words were forthcoming._

_"Right," Guy said, changing the topic. "At any rate, walking around and gathering information would probably be a good thing."_

_"Indeed," Natalia chimed in, nodding her assent. "The more we know before entering Grand Chokmah, itself, the better…" She cast a wary look through the opposite window to Grand Chokmah, the walls surrounding it lightened from a chilled, icy pallor._

"What about the city, itself?" Luke asking, concern in his voice as he stood up. "Undine...?"

Tear nodded somberly. "Undine is definitely there. The city's not quite at a point where we could say it's been destroyed, but it's definitely seen better days."

"Define better days," Luke requested, a dry tone in his voice as he lifted an eyebrow.

Tear closed her eyes momentarily to remember everything she'd seen, then informed him, "The rivers and canals that went through the city, as well as the waterfalls that surround it and flow within it, have all frozen over."

"Frozen over?" Luke blinked. "As in... Undine took over with ice?"

Tear nodded. "When so many fourth fonons gather, they can condense quickly and form into ice," she explained. "It's easier for Undine to maintain that; ice will stay in place, and it can't be removed via melting as long as the temperature low, which it will be with Efreet in the fon belt."

"So it's just more natural to freeze the city than flood it," Luke summarized."Particularly because the city is already so centred around water," Tear agreed. "Do you think you feel up to fighting?"

"You'll have to hold me back," he smiled as his stomach growled in protest. Tear lifted an eyebrow. "It's hungry, not sick," Luke said abashedly.

"All right," Tear smiled, closing her eyes. "We'll get a meal into you, then try to rustle up the rest of the group in the encampment."

"And then..."

"We're going to meet Undine," she said resolutely. "Worried?"

"I have you on the back line to look out for me," he said, smiling happily. "What do I have to be worried about?" She blushed as he led her out of the room.

* * *

"It is quite... frightening," Natalia said in a low voice. Guy, walking beside her, frowned. 

"I know what you mean. It must have happened so suddenly," he answered in his deep, serious voice. "We have to do whatever we can to make sure they get home."

"Yes," the princess replied resolutely. "We shall wrap up this matter as quickly as we can."

Guy smiled a little as he walked. "They're the same, you know."

"Beg your pardon?" she answered politely.

"These people in Grand Chokmah, camping out because Undine took over their city," he replied evenly. "They're the same as the people of Baticul, who did the same thing when Rem was there."

"...they are, aren't they?"

"It doesn't matter where you're born," Guy drabbled on, "if you get cut, you'll bleed. If someone tells you a good joke, you'll laugh. If something sad happens, you'll cry. Malkuth or Kimlasca, it doesn't change that at all."

"So the only reason the two countries have fought," Natalia supposed, a hand idly rubbing her chin, "is pride."

"Too little pride, and a person will never stand up for themselves or their ideals," Guy reasoned, looking calmly at families in tents they passed. "They won't see themselves or their beliefs as important enough to protect."

"But too much, and a person will resort to violence immediately for any problem they encounter," Natalia offered the other half of the dichotomy. "Is there no middle ground?"

"There must be," Guy replied. "The problem isn't just finding it, either; it's staying there."

A child, probably about eleven or twelve years of age, bumped into Natalia, knocking her to the ground. "Sorry!" he cried as he ran past. "I'm late!"

Guy offered her a hand to help her up. She accepted it, saying, "Thank you. I— my money purse!"

"That kid?" Guy said immediately, watching the aforementioned run away.

"It must be, I had it just a moment ago," the woman replied, sending Guy dashing down the path after the child with no delay.

The kid looked back to make sure he wasn't being followed, saw that he was, and started to run faster. Unfortunately for him, Guy was not only much faster, but a much more experienced sprinter (it was astonishing the kind of miscellaneous talents one picked up from countless battles for one's life). The kid slowed down ever so slightly to turn at the corner, but Guy had caught up to him and grabbed onto his shirt at the shoulder before the child had the chance to take off down the new path.

Natalia came running up a moment after. "Guy, don't hurt the poor child!"

Guy sweatdropped. "You're making me out to sound like the bad guy, here..."

The princess knelt down to look at the boy. He had fairly light blond hair that was laying in long, matted clumps around his darker cerulean eyes. Natalia was looking at him, eye-to-eye, thinking deeply. He looked indignantly back. She finally said, "Who are you?" He said nothing in reply. "May I have my money purse back?" He clutched it tightly in his hand, making no move to return it. Guy was still holding on to him tightly, preventing his escape.

"Kid, you know you can't keep that," Guy said as nicely as he could manage. "You can't just take something that doesn't belong to you."

"Why would you try to steal my money?" Natalia asked him levelly, still looking him in the eye. The child was beginning to look more worried than angry. "I'm not mad," she assured him.

"Family," he finally muttered.

"What's that?" Guy asked.

"My family lost everything!" he growled up at the swordsman. "Our home was one of the first ones destroyed. We lost our food, our memories... everything that was precious to my parents is gone, now!"

Natalia soothingly brushed a bit of straggly, messy hair from his eyes. "Not everything," she whispered. "Guy, you may let him go." A little more hesitantly than he thought he would, he released his grip on the child, who stared back, dumbfounded, at the princess. "Keep the gald," Natalia said to him. "But do not take anything from anyone else."

"T-thank you!" the kid stuttered, running off as quickly as he could before she had a chance to change her mind.

"You sure?" Guy asked, cocking an eyebrow. "That was awfully nice of you."

Speaking softly so no one else would hear them, she answered, "What are a few thousand gald to a princess... or a nobleman?" she asked rhetorically.

"I guess you're right," he answered with a grin.

"Besides," she went on, "like you said, whether they're from Malkuth or Kimlasca, they're all the same, in the end. As a princess of one country, I should work for the benefit of both countries during peacetime, and to make sure that peace lasts as long as possible." Guy smiled at her, moving a little closer so he could take her hand as they walked down the pathways.

A while later, they passed one of the larger food tents. Looking inside out of curiosity to see life go on, Guy was surprised to find Luke and Tear sitting at a table, the former eating while the latter made conversation with a very frustrated-looking Anise, who was, from the looks of things, complaining rather loudly. He pointed them out to Natalia, and the couple walked over casually to join them. They heard Anise's words in mid-sentence as they neared.

"...walked off with Peony and left me there with the stinky rappigs! If Sesemann hadn't walked in, I'd still be with them! Ooh, if you hadn't slept in, Luke, this wouldn't have happened! Oh, no, this is so disappointing! I'm barely seventeen and already I'm five steps down the path to being an old maid!"

Luke gave her an unreadable expression, but his mouth was too full of food to answer her. Tear shook her head. "It's amazing the weight of food you put in your mouth doesn't cause you to topple over headfirst."

"Are you joking?" Guy laughed by way of a greeting. "If gravity alone isn't enough to pull that fat head down, no amount of food will help."

Chuckling, Tear assented, "I suppose you're right."

Luke swallowed hard. "You guys could at least wait for me to be able to speak before you insult me, you know."

"Oh, this isn't important!" Anise griped. "What about the Colonel?"

"Anise?" Natalia blinked. "What about the Colonel?"

"He went off to talk about confidential matters with Peony... and didn't let me tag along!"

Guy grinned at her. "Well, if it's really confidential, you can't blame them for not letting you listen in. State secrets, you know."

"Boo," the girl whined. "The Colonel knows he can trust me."

"Well," Luke said with a sly look in his eye, "maybe he didn't bring you because he had to discuss things about you."

"What?" Anise said, her eyes lighting up brightly. "You really think so?"

"Never hurts to hope," Luke shrugged nonchalantly, turning back to his meal.

* * *

"State secrets, huh, Jade?" Peony looked at his friend with a glance of amusement. "I have to say, I'm kind of flattered you're passing up time with the girls to spend with your old buddy." 

Jade coughed, "She's somewhat too young for me, Peony. And I didn't think you'd want her tagging along with us all afternoon."

Peony laughed loudly. "Oh, I wouldn't have minded. But you're sure you didn't want to leave her back there for other reasons?"

The colonel calmly slid his hands into his pockets, at ease. "Whatever reasons would those be?" he asked, somewhat jokingly.

"Oh, you know, just wanting to hang out with an old friend, make sure he's all right after his city froze over?"

"And whom might this old friend be?"

"Ouch," Peony joked. "That's payback for the Abyssman outfits, I suppose?"

"Only the start of it, I'm afraid," Jade smiled back. "Though I suppose—all things considered—it is nice to know you're all right."

Peony grinned very slightly as he looked over his old friend with a thankful eye. He didn't say anything for a moment, the only sound between them being the soft rustle of their feet as they swung between blades of grass. Then he turned more to business. "The food tents have enough of a store to feed the encampment for about two weeks."

"You won't need it for that long," Jade replied confidently. "Undine is within Grand Chokmah, and it is responsible for displacing the populace."

"Are you sure you and the others can handle it?" Peony asked, a slight tinge of worry seeping into his usual confident tone. "This is a sentience we're talking about. Don't underestimate it."

"Don't worry," the soldier replied. "Remember, we have already defeated the other five. We should be able to handle one more."

Peony chuckled. "I was pretty surprised when you told me that. Though I think I was more shocked when the bunch of you strolled into my tent, unannounced…"

___"This is a welcome sight," Peony had said as the five of them entered his tent. There was a large table with maps atop it set up in the centre, and a few scattered chairs laying around it. The rear had another flap, which Jade could only assume lead into the rappig pen, an assumption based on the fact that one of the rappigs (Saphir, he believed) was poking its snout in the tent. "No Luke today?"_

___"We left him back on the Albiore with our pilot," Jade informed him, standing at attention. "He's been feeling a little under the weather."_

___"I see," Peony said. "Well, welcome to my humble abode."_

___"Your Majesty," Guy said, standing more respectfully like Natalia's normal posture than his own , "when your _tent _is larger than Luke's manor back in Baticul, I'm not certain you're allowed to call it humble."_

___"You think?" Peony blinked, tilting his head a little. "Well, either way... Oh, at ease, at ease," he said suddenly, realizing Guy and Jade were fulfilling their duties as soldier and noble. "Sorry. Blanked my mind."_

___"Indeed," Jade answered simply, sliding his hands back into his pockets comfortably._

___"So, have you come to see my rappigs?" Peony grinned at them._

___"Unfortunately not," the colonel replied, "though you may rest assured we saw the emblem atop your tent from the sky."_

___"Ah, isn't it a gorgeous emblem?" Peony smiled broadly. "I always love seeing it whenever we bring the tent out."_

___"I wonder why," Jade replied dryly. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Saphir had now fully entered the tent._

___"Well, at any rate, enough of that," the Emperor sighed. "Have you seen Grand Chokmah?"_

___"Indeed," Natalia said. "It is most terrible..."_

___"We aren't sure what's causing it," Peony admitted. "A massive surge of fourth fonons, and all of them grouping around Grand Chokmah. First it flooded the reservoirs, then it froze all the water altogether. The waterfalls were actually frozen in motion. I'm thinking of renaming the city, at this rate."_

___Taken off guard for a moment, Jade ventured to ask, "Not in line with your original joke to name it Grand Rappigburg, I hope."_

___"No, I was considering Grand Iceberg," he quipped quickly, "and that Rappigburg thing wasn't a joke!"_

___"Regardless," Jade smiled a little, rubbing his temples out of habit and not actual annoyance, "I believe there is an explanation for Grand Chokmah's problems."_

___"Oh?" Peony said. "Go ahead, then, Jade."_

___"Oh, I don't have the explanation, myself, sadly. Guy does."_

___"How did I see that one coming?" Guy said dryly._

___"Perhaps you can see the future," Jade replied sarcastically, grinning widely._

___Anise smirked, "Yeah, maybe that's a distant side-effect from when you were marked with the curse slot."_

___"Oh, my," Natalia gasped, hand up to her mouth. "Can that really happen?"_

___Anise's expression became slyness incarnate, but as she tried to speak, Tear clamped a hand over her mouth. "No, Natalia," Tear said, smiling a little. "Go ahead, Guy."_

___"You, too, huh?" Guy sighed. "Oh, well." And he launched into an explanation of the events that had happened over the past couple weeks, stopping only when Peony interrupted him to clarify something. He always asked Jade to clarify, and Jade always deferred to Guy. It was a vicious cycle._

___When Guy told him that they'd defeated five sentiences to date, however, Peony was visibly taken aback. "Jade... _sentiences?" _was all he was able to say._

___"We had a little support," the colonel replied swiftly. "They were being constantly weakened by an item in Luke's possession." Guy went on to explain the Orb in limited detail, just going over the basic facts for the ruler. When he was finished, Peony sighed._

___"And now you're going to take on Undine, is that the plan?" he asked in a low voice, leaning back in his chair. It rocked back precariously on its hind legs, but didn't topple over._

___"Well, shortly, anyway," Jade informed him with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "Luke hasn't graced us with his presence, yet."_

___Sighing, Tear said, "I'll go back to the Albiore and see if he's awake."_

___"What will you do if he is not?" asked Natalia._

___"I can't see him sleeping much longer past noon," she said hopefully. Tear waved as she slipped from the tent, striding off calmly toward the outskirts and the Albiore._

___"Well, Jade, I suppose you and I should take a look around the emcampment," Peony said, standing up slowly._

___"Only upon the condition that we don't bring the rappigs with us," Jade replied smartly. From near the colonel's feet, Saphir (the rappig) gave out a short, indignant squeal._

___"Well, I suppose I could leave my beauties behind just this once," Peony sighed, adding a little more sadness into his tone than he was honestly feeling to see if he could appeal to Jade's sense of pity._

___"You know," Jade muttered dryly, "I don't _have _a sense of pity."_

___"Very true. Well, I suppose Gailardia can watch the rappigs for me," Peony said happily, but Natalia had grabbed the swordsman by the arm and was pulling him out the tent flap._

___"Actually, Your Majesty," she said quickly, "as the princess of an allied nation, I was going to take Guy with me as a tour guide and escort. We shall see you shortly!"_

___Anise muttered under her breath, "Gee, he's going to owe her one, big time."_

___"Such a shame," Peony said dejectedly. "He's so great with my rappigs, you know."_

___"Well, don't fear," Jade said shifting his glasses with a menacing glint in his eye. "We still have a rappigsitter for you."_

___Anise looked around the tent nervously. "Wait. What? No!"_

___"Just for a few hours, Anise!" Jade said, laughing as he and Peony walked out of the tent._

___"But I wanted to go with you!"_

___"My apologies, Anise, but the Emperor and I have some state secrets to discuss," Jade grinned back as he and Peony exited._

___"Just you wait, Colonel Jade Curtiss!" Anise howled to his retreating back. "The wrath of Daath will be upon you!"_

"To be honest, it's a little surprising to have lived through it, myself," Jade said modestly. "If you had told me a month ago that we were going to do this, I would have suggested you go check into a spa and unwind for a few weeks."

"Oh?" Peony said, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Is that an invitation to go see Nephry?"

"My sister is already married, Peony," Jade said, a little too crossly. "There is, however, a perfectly good spa on the outskirts of Daath. I can have Anise arrange a trip for you."

"If she's still speaking to you after that disappearing act of ours," the ruler chuckled in reply. "She seemed none too pleased with you."

"On the contrary," Jade said in a level tone, though he was laughing interiorly, "all that's done is given her a chance to plot revenge. She loves opportunities like that."

"Well, just be careful," warned Peony. "You don't want her getting the idea for a Revenge Journal, or anything of the sort."

Jade shuddered involuntarily. "That reminds me, how are the inmates from the prison? Did you have trouble getting them out here?"

"Not a terrible lot," he replied, shrugging a little. "The soldiers did a good job keeping them under control. We had to set up a small barracks to hold them while we sorted everything out. I believe we're coming up on it, actually."

A moment more of walking and it came into sight when they turned the corner. The barracks were made of a sturdy metal construction, pieced together carefully and quickly by the Malkuth army. It was large enough for about a hundred cells, and by doubling up prisoners in cells, it was enough to hold them all. Walking to the door, the soldiers on guard saluted the pair smartly, and the colonel returned the gesture as Peony entered.

Jade looked around the entrance carefully. Peony chuckled, "Jade, I seriously doubt Saphir will be anywhere near the entrance. Let's go in."

Jade stepped to the threshold, looking around with a careful eye. "The construction was handled very well, considering how much time you had to do it." He stepped into the barracks fully, eyes adjusting quickly to the slightly dimmer interior. Peony was about to reply, but was cut off by a familiar voice.

"Jade! How dare you show your face here in front of me?!"

"Oh, what a bother," Jade sighed into his glove, frowning. He cast a sharp eye at Peony, who merely shrugged back in a sort of sheepish way at his friend's exasperation as he moved closer to the cell where the voice had originated from.

"Hello, Saphir," he said casually. "How have you been?"

"Terrible!" Dist answered in his usual drawl. "How could you even think of letting them imprison me in a place like this?" He looked over the Emperor's shoulder, glaring angrily at Jade. "And how could you have done this to me? This is all your fault!"

"I beg your pardon?" Jade said aloofly. "You had to have some fault, or else they wouldn't have been able to hold you."

"Silence!" Dist cried. "If I still had my revenge journal, this would be in it!"

Peony lifted a single eyebrow at Jade as he looked back. "What did you have the troops do with the revenge journal?"

"I'm not sure, to be completely honest," the colonel answered. "They held it as evidence for a while—it was proof of conspiracy to harm a Malkuth soldier—until he was sentenced. They may have put it in one of the storage lockers for evidence from old cases, or…" He let the last bit of the sentence dangle menacingly, turning away from the two of them to hide the smile he knew was coming.

"Or?" Dist asked nervously.

"They may have just burned it," Jade shrugged. Dist screamed out melodramatically, causing a smile Jade knew he couldn't resist to curve on the latter's face. "I guess it's somewhat ironic that you can't write down revenge for this in your revenge journal, Dist."

"Ooh, just you wait!" Dist threatened. "I'll start a new revenge journal! And you're going to get the entire first page dedicated to you!"

"However will I tolerate the indecency?" Jade smiled. "Peony, shall we continue our walk? I feel like stretching my legs outside."

A previously unknown shade of purple spread across the fon machinist's face as he shook with rage behind the bars of his cell. "Jade!" Dist shouted. "You traitor! First you turned your back on Professor Nebilim, then on me?" His voice was rising even louder, his gloved hands clenching the bars tightly as though squeezing them enough would allow him to break through their confinement. "I would never have betrayed you! I would have—"

A look from Jade, brow so lowered and anger so clear it was almost physical, almost tangible, sent Dist scurrying back two steps away from the bars where he studied Jade with a confused expression upon his face. "It doesn't matter to me what you would have done. All that is relevant is what you have done, and the consequences of those actions."

"Jade!" Dist shouted back. "Don't you dare lecture me! You're in no position—"

"Perhaps not," Jade shot back coldly, "but at least my position isn't surrounded by three walls and a set of metal bars." He strode confidently from the room, passing between the guards stationed at the door with not even a look to spare. Peony gave Dist a somewhat apologetic look before he followed the soldier, falling into step with him as he caught up.

Back out in the sunshine, Jade's normal expression, betraying no emotion, was plastered on his face as he walked calmly from the barracks. Peony fell into step with him quickly, looking over the soldier carefully before he chose his words.

"I guess it would be somewhat useless to ask if you're all right," he finally brought himself to say, uttering the words somewhat quietly. Despite how confident Peony was, he still found it difficult to approach Jade with his usual tones when the other was in one of his particularly closed withdrawn moods.

"I'm perfectly fine," Jade answered quickly, moving at a somewhat brisk pace.

The ruler sighed in response. "That's exactly what I meant."

"You would prefer I was not perfectly fine?" he replied with a wry smile.

"You know what I mean," Peony answered, just as stubborn. Their conversations, occasionally, degenerated to this; each was too obstinate to yield to the other, and so they just pressed against each other, endlessly struggling to force the other to give in.

Jade betrayed no emotion on his face, though his pace began to slow down a little. "Peony," he finally began, "your concern is noted… and, I suppose, appreciated, but in this instance it is entirely misplaced."

Peony didn't give in. "Jade, you just scared Saphir to the back of his cell with a look."

"Really, Peony, it's Dist," Jade sighed. "I used to be able to scare him by blowing my nose while my eyes were closed."

"Regardless," the ruler said, waving casually as though knocking Jade's argument out of the air. "You haven't gotten angry like that in a long time. Even I was almost frightened."

"Oh? You are aware that by being frightened by me at all, you have become easier to intimidate than Anise?" Jade said, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards ever so slightly.

"But," Peony replied, lifting a finger and waving it defiantly, thinking about how she was caring for his rappigs, "not easier to control."

"I'm not so sure about that," Jade said melodramatically. "Anise can be deceptively difficult to control."

Peony sighed, letting his expression reform into the more somber look he had been using a few moments before. "We went off-topic, somehow," he said, casting an accusatory eye at his friend.

"I wonder how that happened," came the aloof reply, sounding so innocent it almost floatedon the wind (dripping, of course, sarcastic venom on the ground at their feet).

Peony took great pains to sigh again, making the exhalation as loud and noticeable as possible. "See, Jade, this is part of what I always worry about. When something bothers you, you're impossible to talk to."

"Whatever makes you think I need to talk about anything?" Jade replied, his fingers unconsciously fidgeting in his pocket.

Peony groaned. "The fact that I thought Saphir was going to break through the back wall when he recoiled!"

"Really, Peony," Jade chuckled, poking at his glasses. "If you're concerned about Dist's newly acquired superhuman strength, that's something to talk with him about, not me."

"Jade!" Peony snapped, clamping his hand down on the other's shoulder tightly. "Can you take this seriously for a minute?"

"Peony…" Jade trailed off, watching his friend with a somewhat surprised look. "What are you so worried about?"

Hesitantly, he said, "You're running off to fight Undine! Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is?"

Sighing, Jade smiled, "So that's what this is about, then, Peony? You're just concerned about me?"

"Don't sound so flippant about it," Peony demanded. He removed his hand from the soldier's shoulder and started walking again, jamming closed fists under his armpits as he crossed his arms angrily. "This is your life we're talking about, Jade. And someone has to take it seriously because you don't seem to!"

"I'm sorry?"

"You spend all your time working, shutting everyone out. You make horribly sarcastic comments at every opportunity, to shut everyone out. And whenever something comes along that gives you a chance to get back to your roots—even the slightest mention of Dist—you avoid it like a disease!" Peony vented, glaring at Jade with a scowl.

Jade looked at him calmly for a moment or two before deciding upon what to say. "Peony, I can assure you my dislike of Dist is not related to some falsified desire to abandon my heritage." Peony looked at him seriously, but didn't say anything, so Jade continued. "If I must be personally honest—and you know I hate to be so—it is only because of our mutual roots that I'm still attracted to living in this city at all." He added the emphasis to make sure Peony knew it wasn't a word he would commonly use.

"And Dist?"

"My particular disdain for Dist, as I've said, is not related to our heritage," Jade said. "I just don't like him."

"So why were you so bothered?" Peony asked, a narrowed eye looking over his friend.

Jade shuddered not only quite strongly, but entirely involuntarily. "The idea of Dist saying what he would have done is none too flattering…."

"Well, I can't blame you," Peony said, rubbing the back of his head. "Saphir is a real load to have around. Do you think we could unload him on Kimlasca's military? I could propose a prisoner swap."

"They'd have no reason to do it," Jade shrugged, smiling slightly. "It's a rather unfair trade."

"We could offer to take multiple prisoners," Peony suggested, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Does Grand Chokmah have enough space to hold that many?" Jade wondered.

"Well, Undine has knocked out a few walls…" Peony joked, but his face immediately showed that his thoughts were turning back to Grand Chokmah and the city's well being.

"Peony," Jade said, noticing his friend's concern. He went on earnestly, "Don't concern yourself with Undine. Yes, it is a sentience, but we've already defeated five. We're experienced at this, now. Your city will be fine."

"I can't send soldiers to go with you," Peony said, though he knew Jade was already aware of such a detail. "It's just too dangerous for a regular soldier."

"Against an enemy like this, numbers don't mean anything, anyway," the colonel replied calmly. "The attacking force must be skillful, not necessarily large."

Peony stopped suddenly, grabbing Jade's hand and clenching it tightly within his own, a strong handshaking passing between the two. "It's pointless to ask if you're going to be all right, I know. So just make sure you'll beat up Undine and don't get too bumped up, all right?"

Jade grinned through closed eyes, nudging his glasses with his free hand and returning the pressure of the handshake with the other. He didn't answer vocally, instead letting the smile on his face and the pressure of his hand speak for him.

* * *

An hour later, a girl came storming out of a food tent, bushy hair flying behind her, and ran right into a soldier. She began pounding her fists against his shoulder. 

"Colonel!" Anise screamed. "How could you leave me there with those stinky rappigs?!" She wrinkled her nose just at the thought of them. "I was starting to think that if I stayed any longer, I'd never get that smell out of my clothes… or Tokunaga!"

"Well, that's not so bad," Jade teased her, ruffling her hair slightly. "If Tokunaga smelled like a rappig, it would probably be easier to sneak up on monsters."

"Yeah, but whenever I walked through town, people would think the smell was coming from me!" she complained, brushing his hand off so she could step back and cutely stick her tongue out at him.

Jade placed his hand in his pocket and laughed off her comment. Noticing Luke and the others approaching from the food tent, he smiled at the young replica. "I see Tear managed to rouse the slumbering beast."

"I'm surprised you didn't try yourself," Luke shot back, smirking with a hand on his waist.

"Oh, but I did!" the colonel replied. "Unfortunately, my poison had little effect."

"…you are kidding, right?"

"It's my special wake-up poison," he went on, beginning to walk down the pathway once all six of them were nearby. "It's supposed to be guaranteed to rouse someone instantly at the cost of paralysis to a limb or two."

Luke found himself walking faster.

"Say, Jade," Guy said, moving up to keep pace beside him, "where's Peony?"

"I walked him back to his tent and began strolling down the pathways looking for all of you," he replied, flicking a speck of dirt from one of his gloves. "He offered to help me search, but I was concerned that he would stop to pet every rappig, so I told him to stay behind and do some work."

"Good idea," Guy replied, hand holding onto his sword's hilt to keep it in place. "Is there anything else you want to do while we're here?"

"No," Jade answered quickly. "I think it's about time to head out for Grand Chokmah."

Luke held in a long breath, then let it out. "Are we ready, then?"

"The last sentience battle," Guy said, almost forebodingly.

"Assuming," Natalia filled in innocently, "that we will not have to battle Lorelei, as well."

"You know just how to put a damper on things, don't you, Natalia?" Anise grimaced. Natalia gave her an apologetic look in reply.

"Whether we have to fight Lorelei or not, we'll have to get through Undine first," Luke reminded them all. "So let's get focused on this battle."

Walking for a few more minutes, their footsteps carried them to the edge of the camp. Luke looked out over the horizon. The sun told them it was around mid-afternoon, which meant they would be in Grand Chokmah by late afternoon—plenty of time to meet Undine and, if necessary, fight it before nightfall.

Luke looked considerably more edgy as they walked. As they drew near to the city, he was flexing his hands, his arms, even sprinting short distances and running back to the group. When Luke jumped high in the air, however, Tear scowled at him. "Luke, you were just terribly sick less than a day ago!" she complained. "Please don't push yourself so much!"

"I'm okay, don't worry!" he assured her. He bent at the knees and raised himself up again a few times as it to demonstrate his fact. "Now that I've been up for a few hours, I'm feeling even better than I was earlier. I just wanted to make sure I could jump and move around well in case I have to dodge suddenly."

"It is wise of him to test his abilities before we engage Undine, Tear," Natalia said soothingly, running her hand absent-mindedly over her quiver to double-check her arrow count.

"Yes, but…" She sighed. "Never mind. Just don't push yourself too much until we actually get in the battle, Luke."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Luke answered.

"It's nervous energy," Guy theorized. "He's anticipating the battle so much that his body's forgotten it was so sick a while ago."

"Or," Jade teased, "he's just not smart enough to remember that fact, himself."

"Ha, ha," Luke replied sarcastically. "Trust me, I'm fine. It's strange. It's like every step we take closer to the battle makes me feel a little better."

"Well, that's wonderful," Jade smiled. "Now we just have to make sure you can walk away from the battle."

The group walked past the Grand Chokmah city gates, eliciting a shudder from Tear. There was a very slight wind, carrying the cold of the ice to them. While it chilled her a little, it felt somewhat refreshing to Luke after their long walk, and slipped with no effect off of Jade.

The frozen city felt ominous. There was, at once, a calm, quiet beauty radiating from the frozen waterfalls, but it belied a deep, troubling sense that also sprang forth from them. Perhaps it was just the somewhat disturbing sight of seeing the waterfalls of the city frozen in still motion or the idea that at any moment, Undine could conceivably spring forth from any of them, but walking slowly through the chilled city was wearing on them. Thankfully, the ground along the pathways was still not icy, so they would at least have traction.

Anise fought hard to keep her hand from drifting to Tokunaga against her will. She looked around the cityscape with an eye scanning for movement, reminding herself as she forced her hand away from her doll that she had to approach the sentience with words of peace, not of violence.

Not that that had worked so far.

They passed the item shop (frozen over), the inn (frozen over) and the bar (crushed beneath a block of ice) without finding Undine. Jade let a small, melodramatic sigh slip from his lips as they passed the bar. "Such a shame. The best curry in the world came from that bar."

Anise lifted an eyebrow at the soldier. "Colonel, we have the recipe. Your friend there gave it to us years ago."

"Ah, so we do," he replied with a casual shrug. "No loss, then."

"Not even worried about your friend's establishment?" Guy sighed slightly.

"I'm a little more concerned for us at the moment, if truth be told, Guy," was the dry reply.

They came to one of Grand Chokmah's many overlooks, the last one before a turn in the path led right to the palace. Blinking into the distance, Natalia pointed. "Up ahead," she said with considerable calm in her voice.

"What?" Luke blinked, squinting. "Undine? How can you tell from here?"

"Archer eyes," Natalia said simply. "I was trained to be able to see far away while you were being thrown to all corners of the garden by Van's training swords."

"I wasn't thrown to all corners," Luke grumbled loudly.

"Yes, I seem to recall how upset it would have made Aunt Susanne if you'd fallen in her favourite flowerbed in the south-west corner," Natalia reminisced, a pleasant look on her face. "Van took care to throw you to all the other corners, instead."

"You're really not helping my confidence going into this battle, you know..."

Undine was waiting calmly for them in the large square which led to the palace and the military headquarters. Its face was calm and expressionless, its eyes betraying no intent for, or apparent interest in, violence. Its body was that of a beautiful woman, dressed in a soft, silk-like dress in hues of blue. The outfit rippled along her body as though mirroring the waves incarnate. Mirroring, for the dress wasn't the incarnation of the water.

Undine was.

"I welcome thee, Fon Master," Undine said politely.

"O water eternal, life indivisible, I am Fon Master Anise—"

"Of the Order of Lorelei," it continued. "Child, I know you have come here to kill me. Please do not take me to be stupid by explaining things multiple times, as well."

"Wow," Luke muttered. "That's almost more condescending than Jade." Guy shot him a dirty look to shut him up.

"Please, tell me something, Fon Master," Undine smiled slightly, looking into the girl's eyes calmly. "Which do you prefer: peace or violence?"

"Peace, of course," Anise replied easily. "There's not a person alive who would want to live in a world of war over a world of peace." At Undine's calm tones and benevolent gaze, Anise's hands felt no inclination to reach for Tokunaga.

Undine nodded, her eyes closed as if processing her next statement. "Perhaps, Fon Master, that is too general of a statement, but youth shall be your saving grace. Now," it went on, flicking its hand to summon a throne of ice behind it which it promptly sat upon. "Wouldn't you agree that when people become used to something, they tend to continue the action they're used to?"

"I guess so," Anise said hesitantly, reflecting on how difficult it was for many people—herself included—to adapt to life without the score.

"Then what you've done all your lives, fighting for a world of peace, is destined to fail," it stated simply.

"What are you talking about?" Luke blurted before he could stop himself. "We succeeded at that!"

"You succeeded in protecting a world where people could fight to resolve their differences," Undine informed him, "but not a peaceful one. With hands that are stained with blood, precisely what kind of peaceful world do you think you can create that won't slip from your fingers?" she asked somewhat bitterly.

"And what's the alternative?" Luke cried, his hand already moving to the hilt of his Key. "If our hearts and feelings and beliefs were the only weapons we had to defend ourselves and our ideals, just what the hell could we protect with that?!"

"Well said, child," Undine commended him, standing up, letting the throne sink back into the ground and summoning a spear of ice. "Here shall I make that your final speech."

"I won't allow that!" Luke cried, Key drawn and charging the sentience at full power. All traces of his sickness had, apparently, faded. "I won't lose to you! We won't lose to you!"

"Fine then!" Undine shouted, running back at him with spear pointed forward. "You... you who are the Bane of Existence! Come and meet your fate!"

Luke didn't stop to register its words as he met the sentience's attack head-on, but Jade certainly did. Another piece of the puzzle came together, and Jade couldn't help but feel that he was on the threshold of understanding something. He just had to piece it together properly...

Undine twirled its spear almost lazily to block Luke's opening slash, turning with its body to get force behind its next swing. Luke parried the attack easily, but was forced back from the power of the blow. Turning from him, Undine slashed up at the other party members, crying, "Freeze Lancer!" Icy pieces of shrapnel appeared in the air in front of it, soaring at the party with dangerous intent behind them. Guy took a few pieces on the arm, but the group managed to see the attack coming with enough time to roll to safety.

"Honestly," Natalia mused playfully as she healed the damage to Guy. "Be more careful next time, Guy."

"I don't need to hear that from you," he teased, giving as good as he got. She would have replied, but a sudden spire of ice tore up from the ground between them, and they resolved themselves to begin paying more serious attention.

"Thou who wouldst take revenge, carve here thy holy seal!" Tear commanded, coming off what was, perhaps, her fastest casting time in recent memory. "Eclair de Larmes!" Holy light erupted from the ground, ripping up through the sentience's body. Undine scowled at the attack, but didn't appear to be harmed at all. It turned to charge at Tear, but Guy and Luke were on her too quickly.

"Cut it off!" Luke cried as he ran in at the sentience, locking blade against spear. Guy took the advantage to swing at Undine from the rear, but a sudden wall of ice popped up from the ground and blocked his assault.

"Really, now, this is just getting ridiculous," Natalia grumbled, firing a few shots which bounced off carefully placed floating balls of ice. "How are we supposed to get a hit on it?"

"Like this," Jade offered. "Grant mine enemies a final rest! Flame Burst!" But his arte was significantly smaller than usual, so much so that Undine was able to knock the attack away with little more than a wave of its hand.

"Colonel, you're supposed to hit it!" Anise said dryly from his side, looking down from atop Tokunaga.

"It appears that it's impossible to make proper use of fifth fonons while we're in the city and still suffering from the effects of fonic interference," Jade sighed. "Knowing about the side effects would have been lovely, Guy." The swordsman didn't answer, being too distracted by trying to avoid the tip of Undine's spear as it stabbed at him menacingly.

Guy parried two thrusts, then rolled to the side as Luke swung in laterally from behind Undine, but the sentience blocked the swing with the shaft of its spear, then spun the butt end upwards, catching the replica beneath the chin. Luke stumbled back, off his guard, but Undine's next swing was parried away by Guy, who stepped in at just the right moment to protect his friend.

Undine was about to attempt a new flurry of stabs when it was immediately placed on the defensive from a barrage of Toku-fists. "This doesn't seem like behaviour fit for a Fon Master," Undine commented calmly.

"Nor for a sentience!" Anise shot back. "Dual Punishment!" But that was to be a bad choice for Anise, for the second her back was turned during the spin, Undine forced its spear out defensively, blocking Tokunaga's arm and preventing the spin. Anise felt Undine's free hand on the back of her neck as the sentience prepared to rip her off the doll. "Let go!"

"Whatever for? So you can attack me again?" Undine asked.

"Piercing Line!" Natalia cried, and Undine only then noticed how close the princess had come to it. With no time to dodge, the arrow ripped right through its forearm, severing it and freeing Anise, who immediately hopped away. Undine grunted as its forearm splashed against the ground, collapsing into water the moment it hit the ground.

"Nice shot, Natalia!" Guy congratulated her.

"Also a futile one," the sentience growled, turning some of the ice near it to water and drawing it up to its arm. It collected and formed into a new arm, just the same as its last.

"You have to be kidding me," Luke frowned, annoyed.

Tear frowned slightly. "Stay focused. Don't lose your concentration."

"I do beg your pardon," Undine interjected politely, dashing suddenly and reaching Tear within two bounds, "but you might wish to pay attention to yourself, as well." The sentience's icy spear went wide over Tear's shoulder, and Tear swung, sending a fonic energy ball crashing into the sentience's stomach. Undine, however, was not even winded.

"O mighty explosion!" Jade cried out. "Energy Blast!" The explosion bought Tear time to get out of range of Undine's next attack, but didn't leave the sentience with any lasting damage.

Guy and Luke came in again, coordinating their positioning so that they could hit out at Undine from the front and back. In defense, Undine summoned a second spear of ice to its free hand, turned sideways, and proceeded to block all incoming slashes. For good measure, it did a backflip at the end of the onslaught to kick away an incoming arrow from Natalia. Undine then sent an Icicle Rain in Jade's direction, but the colonel evidently didn't feel like moving, so he created a whirling shield from spinning his spear rapidly and deflected all the icicles to the side.

"You are somewhat strong," Undine complimented them. "Though with Efreet banished, it won't be enough, I'm afraid."

"We'll see about that," Luke muttered, running at Undine again, leaping into a high slash.

"When the very ground, itself, turns against you, child," Undine said, too calmly for a battle voice, "what do you do?" She raised both spears to block the incoming attack.

"I think Gnome asked a similar question," Luke countered.

"And so have I! Grand Chill!" Dropping a spear, it pushed Luke away and leaped high in the air, coming down and hitting the ground with its open palm. From where it struck, pure ice quickly spread outwards, covering the ground of the whole town square.

"Whoa!" Anise cried as Tokunaga lost his footing. She hit the ground awkwardly, then struggled to get back onto Tokunaga. "No fair! This is perfectly smooth ice!"

Undine summoned a new spear to itself so it had two again, then spun and swung the shaft of one hard against Guy, who barely managed to get his scabbard up against the blow. The force, however, pushed him back, and he was unable to stop because he couldn't gain footing against anything. He kept sliding until he bumped back against Tokunaga. "Nice catch, Anise," he quipped quickly.

"I hate this ice!" was her reply. "I can't get a strong grip on it with Tokunaga." She hopped back on, but it was taking a very concentrated effort to keep the fabric of Tokunaga's feet steady on the ice. Anise grumbled loudly, "How are you supposed to move on this stuff?!" Just then, Jade went dashing past her, spear in hand, to confront Undine physically, running as though it was normal ground beneath his feet. "…I'm going to kill him."

"I'll handle the combat because you can't," Jade called back. "You cast from afar!"

"Because I can't," Anise grumbled bitterly. "I just might forget to mark you as an ally, Colonel," she muttered under her breath. Natalia was firing arrows rapidly at Undine, but every shot was forcing her to slide back several feet, making it difficult to string successive shots together.

"This is ridiculous," Anise grumbled as she began to cast. "You'd have to be someone of the Colonel's level of fonic skill to be able to run on this stuff… Luke, watch out!" she shrieked as Undine pulled away before Jade could get to it and turned to attack Luke. Undine brought its spear down, but Luke parried it out of the way. Deciding to power through Luke's defense, Undine combined both of its spears into a single, large halberd. Despite the size of the blade, Undine didn't appear to have any problems swinging the weapon.

Undine brought the halberd around in a high arc from above, but Luke managed to parry it to the side, though only just. The sentience raised the weapon before the blade connected with the ground so as not to risk giving anyone proper footing by damaging the icy ground, then chopped low to try and cut through Luke's ankles or lower legs. Luke jumped over the attack, lashing out with the Key. He scored a direct hit along Undine's body, causing the sentience to cry out loudly before a sudden burst of fonons from within its body erupted outwards, knocking the young noble back.

Off his feet, Luke righted himself in midair and prepared to hit the ground and slide back, but he could see Undine already attacking him while he was in the air. Jade was still too far off to intercept the attack, so Luke braced himself to try and block it. Undine raised its hand, summoning an Icicle Rain like before, but this time, all of the shards coalesced into one large, grand pointed icicle before it fired the attack at him. So there it was, Undine, standing triumphantly before him, its hand having created a massive chunk of ice, shaped like a drill or a horn, incredibly sharp at the tip, flying at him, ripping into his stomach, and then—

Jade smiled.


	17. Revelations

He liked it when a puzzle came together in his mind. It was the one instant when everything was clear and precise and made _sense _that he absolutely adored beyond all else. For Jade Curtiss loved making sense of the world.

And when he watched Undine's conglomerated Icicle Rain connect with Luke's body and saw how the large horn of ice dissipated against his body upon contact, everything finally made sense.

Luke landed on his feet squarely, planting himself against the ground. Anise blinked, frowned and was about to say, "Boo," when her Tokunaga nearly lost his own footing again.

Undine growled, a sound that didn't quite match up with its generally peaceful look. "I should have known."

Tear blinked in Luke's direction, not quite sure what to make of what had just happened. "Luke..." she wondered. "Are you all right?"

Luke felt his stomach in response. There was no hole through his torso, no blood flowing down his legs, no sign that he was hurt in any way. Yet, he had felt the attack strike him. So how...?

Jade's smile was now too large to ignore. "All right, Jade," Guy said, obviously confused. "What just happened?"

Jade just shrugged as he put his spear away within his arm. "Why do you always assume I have all the answers?"

"Colonel!" Natalia said sharply. "If you do not tell us soon, Luke may think he can keep doing that, and I would assume it's dangerous to put him in that position again."

"Well," Jade replied slyly, looking at Luke carefully. "There's really no need to worry. I think he _can_ do it again. And again and again, however many times he'd like."

Luke poked his stomach again. He was just confused at this point. "Jade, what are you talking about?"

"Luke," Jade said, "you didn't lose the Orb of Lorelei. You _absorbed _it." The words were clear and comforting, and washed over him with a feeling of intense relief.

_Luke tried to raise himself up, but started coughing furiously the moment he raised himself up on his elbows. He dropped back down to the sand... It took two hours of laying on the sands above the Zao Ruins before Luke felt healthy enough to walk back to the Albiore._

"That sickness you had," Jade said, the realization dawning on him, "was not from the glyph. You were so sick because you had absorbed the Orb, which contained a massive amount of four different fonon types."

The understanding came to Anise, as well. "Your body was suffering from a severe imbalance of fonons. You were missing a whole lot of earth and water fonons!"

"But," Guy realized, "when you laid down on the desert for so long, you must have pulled up the second fonons to your body from the Zao Ruins. That was why you felt strong enough to walk after laying down for a few hours."

"I'm so glad I don't have to explain it all," Jade commented wryly, nudging his glasses.

Undine, apparently, felt like it was being too kind in granting them time to talk, and so lunged right at Luke, its halberd of ice at the ready. Luke parried the attack, but his mind was only half on Undine as he listened to the others piece the puzzle together.

Tear blinked, remembering something. "That fever you had..."

_Tear held a hand against his forehead. He had a fever... She shook her hand; it had fallen asleep, but she was getting feeling back into it, now._

"Your body was so warm because you had a mass of fire fonons within you, but no water fonons to counteract the heat they were producing," she said, figuring it out piece-by-piece. "And my hand must have fallen asleep after I touched you because some of my own fonons were absorbed through contact."

"It's very likely," Jade admitted. "O mighty explosion... _Energy Blast!_" he cried out, and a small burst of fonic power popped around Undine, who only grunted as it pushed her to the side. Luke took the opportunity to press his own attack, his Key meeting against the sentience's halberd, each pushing for position.

"And," Tear went on, thinking back...

"_Never mind. How's your illness? Are you still feeling nauseous?" _

"_It's better than it was yesterday, at least. My head doesn't feel dizzy at all, either." _

"You started to feel even better the closer we got to Grand Chokmah," Tear said. "You were even jumping and sprinting on the walk over here."

"I see," Natalia smiled. "That must have been when he started absorbing fourth fonons. That would start creating a balance of fonons within him, making the Orb turn small amounts of fonons into seventh fonons. _Piercing Line!_" she cried. The arrow flew quickly, but Undine just ducked under it, then was forced back several feet from Luke's relentless assault.

"When the Orb has an equal number of fonons of all six types, it changes all fonons of that equivalent amount into seventh fonons," Guy recalled. "So every small amount of water fonons Luke absorbs results in that same amount of each fonon type within him being transformed into seventh fonons." The swordsman smiled, a look of battle coming upon his face. "So the longer we fight, the stronger Luke gets because his illness will keep wearing off..."

"And the weaker Undine will get because it's the sentience's fonons that are being drained. Right, Undine?" Anise called over happily.

"Not only that," Guy said, watching the battle. "Luke's also got one more advantage."

"_You'd have to be someone of the Colonel's level of fonic skill to be able to run on this stuff…" _

_Luke landed on his feet squarely, planting himself against the ground._

"The Orb is absorbing fonons at the precise moment his feet hit the ground," Guy pointed out. "That's why he's not slipping on the ice like the rest of us are."

"The rest of whom?" Jade called back tauntingly, running at full speed and stabbing at Undine with his spear. The sentience parried the thrust, but Jade was too skilled at defense for her to find an opening to attack back into.

"I understand," Luke said. "Undine's artes aren't affecting me, and I can still move perfectly well on this ice." He tightened his grip on his sword, resolving himself. "Everyone, stay at a distance! I'll handle this. Support me from a distance, if you can." It's fair to say that the replica knew, in a pressured situation, how to strategize. Jade fell back, recognizing that it's easier for a fighter to dodge an attack if he doesn't have a teammate right at his side blocking off avenues of escape. All the party fell back to the rear, leaving Luke and Undine staring each other down in the centre.

"This is very brave of you, child," Undine complimented him. "I can see why the hindered sentiences had such a difficult time battling your group. You work together well."

Luke disregarded the compliment. "Undine, we don't _want _to do this. When it's over, we're going to find a way to save you. All of you."

"The way to save us is to relinquish the Orb of Lorelei," it informed him, lowering its spear. "Do that, and I will let you live."

"Undine, your artes aren't affecting me. And I bet even your halberd of ice won't do a severe amount of damage to me if you manage to hit me with it," Luke reasoned. "You're at a disadvantage here. Please, reconsider and withdraw."

Undine closed its eyes for a moment. It dropped the halberd to the ground, where the weapon shattered into pieces and melted into the ground. Undine raised its arms in front of itself, lifting them parallel to the ground. Then, a large rush of blue fonons began to whirl around the sentience. Its eyes snapped open. "_Spring Thaw._"

Instantly, the ice around them started to melt. Loud cracking sounds could be heard as ice shifted and crashed in multiple places, creating a cacophony of clacking and snapping. The waterfalls began to run again, but with so many walls cracked, the water began to run through the pathways of the city. Within a few moments, a torrent of water rushed to the town square they were fighting in, flooding the battlefield up to their knees. Not even the Orb absorbed the water quickly enough from within Luke, and so he was enveloped by the flood just as much as the rest of them.

"Well," Anise griped from atop Tokunaga, "at least I can move again. Kind of. And I'm dry!"

Natalia shuddered. "This water is frigid!" Tear tried to maintain her composure, though she was starting to shiver. Jade looked completely at ease.

Luke locked eyes with Undine and raised his sword. Undine glared back. "Are you prepared?" it asked.

"Are you?" he returned the gesture.

Undine didn't bother to answer. It rushed at Luke, crafting a sword of water from the pool it had created below them. Its speed was spectacular; it was propelling itself through the water effortlessly, riding along the top foot of the water with practiced ease. Luke, meanwhile, was struggling to step against the water pressure around his feet. His legs felt a little heavier than usual, but he still felt he could move easier than the last time he'd been swimming and had to walk through water; he assumed the Orb was absorbing some of the fourth fonons around him, making it easier to move.

Undine's sword of water clashed against the Key of Lorelei and Luke gaped at his foe's weapon. It was liquid water, but solid like ice, yet it wasn't frozen at all. It was just liquid water, formed in the shape of a blade and acting solid like his own weapon. He wasn't sure if it would hurt him or not, but he didn't feel like testing his luck against it.

Luke pushed back against the blade. Undine dropped under Luke's push, forcing Luke's weapon up by lifting with its own sword and dropping the weapon. With the opening, Undine used its own increased speed from the water to swerve under his guard and slip just behind him. Undine passed its hand over the water, instantly fashioning a new sword, and cut across Luke's body with the weapon. The sword broke down into basic fonons as it touched Luke and was absorbed, leaving no damage across Luke's body. Luke smiled grimly as he turned and scored a powerful hit across Undine's body, sending the sentience backwards and leaving a shimmering line of unformed water across its body. Undine landed on its feet, and the water reformed into its body.

"It looks like you can't hurt me," Luke said. "Your weapons won't help you."

"And you can't keep up with me," Undine pointed out. "I can get under your guard at a moment's notice." Its eyes flickered over to Anise, who was spinning her staff with practiced care.

"O hellion whose roar chills the very soul, resound!" she cried. "_Bloody Howling!_"

Undine evaded the attack effortlessly, only grimacing slightly when it heard the haunting wail the arte emitted for which it was named. It turned to face Anise, some distance away, and smiled.

"Chilling is a very good idea, Fon Master," it said, its grin dark and mischievous. "Would you like to see a proper chilling arte?"

"No, thank you!" Anise said immediately.

Undine chuckled to itself. "Suffer this merciless glacial embrace," it commanded, and Jade immediately recognized the similarity to his own arte. Undine touched the water with a single finger. "_Absolution._"

There was no time to react, no time to move. There was barely even time to blink. The instant the word was out of its mouth and its fingertip touched the water, all the liquid around them that had risen up to their knees froze solid. Owing, no doubt, to the fact that water expands when frozen, the ice was now imprisoning them and freezing them up to their waists (even Anise; of course, this meant Tokunaga was frozen over up to about halfway up his head).

Undine slipped up through the ice, stepping gracefully onto its surface. The six party members were completely surrounded and trapped by the ice. Guy's hand was even caught, which left his sword protruding from the ice, useless to him as he could not move it. Natalia's bow was caught under the surface, as was Tear's staff. Jade's arms were free, and it looked like he was working on summoning fifth fonons to free himself.

Undine noticed. "I would rather you didn't," it stated simply. It raised a single hand. "_Saturation._"

Jade blinked for a moment, looking very confused. Then he frowned at Undine, a look of pure annoyance on his face.

"Jade, what is it?" Luke blinked, looking around. "What happened?"

Tear felt around for fonons as best she could through the fonic interference. "It looks like Undine super-concentrated this area with fourth fonons, even beyond its originally high levels. It's made it so that this part of Grand Chokmah is actively repelling even more fifth fonons than it was before."

Guy scowled. "So even Jade can't use fire to melt us out. Damn it," he growled in a low tone.

"Which also means," Undine noted, sliding over to Guy on the slippery ice, "that you're all ripe for the picking." It grabbed the blade of Guy's sword with its bare hand, then tapped the ice with its foot. The ice around Guy's hand immediately melted into water, at which point, Undine tore the sword from his hand and refroze the thawed ice as soon as the sword was in the sentience's possession. "But you, first," it went on, looking at Luke.

Luke swallowed hard. Undine, armed with Guy's sword, would be more than able to cut through his body. The battle had now been reduced to a one-on-one duel, and his opponent was nothing short of deadly.

Undine charged in first, sliding quickly, led by the point of Guy's sword in a long thrust. Luke parried to the side, then brought the Key straight across Undine's head. The sentience ducked, then tried to cut along Luke's back, but the replica was too quick and managed to roll away from the incoming slash.

Luke attacked from range when he got back to his feet, calling, "_Demon Fist!_" and sending a shock wave of energy at Undine, but the sentience raised a small amount of ice from the ground before itself and blocked it, then lowered the ice back down to keep the surface smooth. Of course, the slippery ice didn't matter at all, as the Orb kept Luke from sliding anywhere.

"Child, stop persisting," Undine frowned, locking blades again and starting him in the eye. "You can't win this battle against me."

"No," Luke said levelly. "What you mean to say is that you think I _won't _win this battle against you. What I _can't _do is _lose,_" he argued, and pushed Undine back with a sudden burst of strength. With a flick of its hand, Undine raised a spear of ice that shot toward Luke from behind him.

"Luke, watch out!" Tear cried in warning out of habit.

The replica didn't even bother getting out of the way. Again, when the ice struck him, the attack dissipated into fonons and were absorbed. Undine looked not only angry, now, but tired. It began to breathe heavily.

"Luke, just a little longer!" Jade cried across the battlefield. "Undine is weakening from fonon absorption!"

Luke stood up tall and pointed his sword at the sentience. "Undine, I might not be as strong or as fast as you, and I might not be able to cast artes like you can..." He started running at the sentience, both hands on his Key, preparing for a mighty swing, "But I'm not fighting on a timer!"

Undine parried the Key, but only just. It was true, Undine realized: it was weakening. Undine's face was now contorted into a mask of rage as it glared at Luke. It pushed Luke away with strength born of anger and began gathering an immense amount of fonons. Seeming to require both hands, it dropped Guy's sword, letting it sink into the ice so that no one could take it.

"And I," Undine growled bitterly, "am not fighting with five loved ones to protect." It raised its hand at Tear, and a massive chunk of ice began to form. It was the conglomerated Icicle Rain again, aimed directly at an immobile Tear.

"Tear!" Luke cried, realizing what was about to happen. He dashed in the way of the attack, knowing that it wasn't going to hurt him... if he could only get in the way in time!

"Die," Undine commanded, and the horn of ice rocketed toward Tear. Her eyes opened wide as she saw it coming, and realized she couldn't even raise her staff to set up a Magic Guard as it was still frozen in the ice.

Luke pushed his legs for all they were worth. Tear was a little father back from Undine than he was, so to make it, he would have to jump in the line of fire with his back turned to the attack to intercept it. He wouldn't be able to parry it, but since Undine's attacks couldn't hurt him at all, it didn't matter. All that mattered was protecting Tear!

Ten feet away from Tear, Luke leaped in the way of the attack. Tear's face went from scared to slightly worried when she saw him step in the way, but she remembered that he was safe from Undine's attacks, and she let a held breath out. Luke grunted with concentration at holding the attack back so that it wouldn't force him to crash into her, feeling all the while the familiar sensation of fonons being absorbed into him. Then, there was a totally new feeling, and Undine laughed maliciously. Tear cried out in horror. There was metal sticking out from Luke's chest.

Undine had hidden Guy's sword in the Icicle Rain blast.

The Icicle Rain had been absorbed. The sword went right through Luke's body. Luke coughed up blood as the sticky crimson liquid began running down his chest. The sword had missed his heart high, but only barely. Luke sank to his knees.

"Luke!" Tear screamed, watching him suffer from the attack. "No, Luke, please!"

"Please what?" Undine asked, walking up to them slowly from behind Luke. "He's got nothing left to give you, child. There's no point in asking for more."

Tear's mind was too scattered to focus on casting First Aid, and even if she could, it was doubtful that the arte would have any effect before it was just absorbed into his body uselessly. Tear's free hand was clenched into a fist which rested on the ice surface. She looked ready to punch it repeatedly in the hopes of freeing herself.

"You have no hope left," Undine said confidently. "This is the time for you to surrender to me. This is the time for you to admit that what you're doing is futile. This is the time for you to—"

"Bring it on," Luke rasped, struggling to his feet as a burst of fonons escaped from his body so forcefully that the Orb within him didn't absorb them back in, and the sword embedded in his back was blown from his body, leaving a would bleeding on both sides of his chest. Undine, standing at the edge of the attack, was pushed back only slightly, but walked closer to him nevertheless.

"You can barely stand," Undine said, catching Guy's sword out of midair and walking forward with it. "You're no match for me, any longer." But the sentience, too, was breathing heavily, the Orb within Luke taking full effect.

Within Luke's body was a mass of seventh fonons, and the power of the Key of Lorelei was adding to his own. He felt like he was about to die, but was still just as confident as the sentience was. "Let's find out," he managed to mutter, his vision beginning to swim. "If you ask me," he said, parrying as Undine slashed down with Guy's sword, "..._you're finished._"

Luke raised his sword up to the sky, perpendicular to the ground, and a sudden whirling mass of fonons erupted around his body. Undine found itself caught up in the maelstrom, unable to back away. Seventh fonons were ripping through its body as it realized what was happening: Luke was channeling hyperresonance through it!

Luke began slashing out at the sentience, each swing of the sword causing a new wave of energy to cut through Undine's body. All the while, Luke was commanding, "Arise, resound and become the blade of destruction!"

"Impossible!" Undine shrieked as the hyperresonance waves began to break up its physical body. Panicking, it tried to get away, but the waves were too strong and too many for it to escape.

"_Lost Fon Drive!_"

Luke brought the Key from over his head, swinging it in a mighty arc down on the sentience. When it was at chest level, Luke released a large blast of hyperresonance, not a fully powered one that would have destroyed everything, but an amount he felt oddly comfortable controlling in battle. When the attack was over, Luke looked up to see only wisps of blue fonons remaining, and Undine nowhere in sight.

The last sentience had been sent back to the fon belt.

Luke fell back against the ground, dropping the Key at his side. His blood was spilling against the ice, and he began to cough. He suddenly felt a strange feeling within him. It was as though something had passed through his body. Then it felt as though something was being taken away. He looked down at himself, and the hole in his chest was gone. He looked up and gaped. There was an old man leaning upon a wooden, knobbly cane, complete with a long, white beard and matching hair. "You..." Luke gasped. The man looked down on him, a wrinkled face watching him benevolently with a soft expression, his eyes scanning Luke's body. When his gaze fell upon Luke's chest, he nodded, causing Luke to look back over himself again. It wasn't a dream. There was no wound.

It was then that Luke realized the man had taken the Orb from within his body. He also felt familiar, as if Luke had met or seen him somewhere before. Then, with a sudden, stifled gasp, Luke remembered. As though reading his thoughts, the elderly man smiled as he turned the Orb over in his hand. "Yes," the old man nodded sagely.

"Lorelei..."

Lorelei hobbled over to each of the party in turn, one-by-one, and held the Orb close to them. It absorbed the fourth fonons around them, causing the ice to crack quickly and allowing them to free themselves. When it was finished, the additional fourth fonons from Undine's Saturation arte had also faded, so Jade instantly began summoning fifth fonons to warm them up so the ice had no lasting effects on their bodies.

"Lorelei," Luke whispered. "That Orb... I need... I mean," he stuttered.

"I know, Luke," Lorelei answered calmly. "But there is much to explain, and for now, I shall beg of you to listen." Luke's hand edged toward his Key where it lay on the ground but Lorelei held up his hand gently and shook his head. "I'm not going to fight you, Luke," Lorelei said. "Please relax. Your battles with the sentiences are over." Luke nodded, grabbed his Key, anyway, and sheathed it. The group huddled close for warmth from Jade, and Lorelei smiled broadly at them.

Anise hugged the Colonel to try and get warmer. "It's hard to believe we're actually done." Jade smiled at her, saying nothing. Guy slipped an arm around Natalia's shoulders, and Tear hugged Luke tightly, poking his chest as if in disbelief that the sword wound was gone.

"Ah, where to begin, where to begin," Lorelei wondered aloud.

"At the beginning would be a nice place," Guy quipped before he could stop himself, and Natalia elbowed him lovingly.

"Could you explain how you got here?" Luke asked. "And why you didn't come down earlier?"

"For now," Lorelei explained, "suffice it to say that the hyperresonance you used caused such a vast increase of seventh fonons in this area that I was able to make myself manifest here." Lorelei sat cross-legged, but was floating a metre in the air as it did so. "I think I would like to start even earlier, however. With your dreams, Luke."

"My dreams?" Luke wondered. "What dreams?"

"You had three dreams last night," Lorelei reminded him, though the replica didn't remember them at all. "One was for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. I sent you the dreams to help you piece what was happening together."

"Why didn't you send them earlier, if you could talk to Luke?" Tear asked him, eyebrow raised.

"He wasn't receptive enough," Lorelei said to her. "He didn't have enough seventh fonons within him. However, because he brought the Orb inside him and was distantly absorbing fourth fonons, his overall seventh fonon level rose. I was able to contact him then, but only when he was asleep, as that is when a mortal is most receptive to thought."

"That makes a certain amount of sense," Jade agreed, nodding slightly. "What did you send him?"

"The dream of the future was about him being able to absorb the Icicle Rain from Undine," explained Lorelei calmly. "However, he awoke too early to see the effects of the Icicle Rain on him, and he forgot about the dream immediately, anyway!"

"That sounds like Luke," Anise teased him. Luke was feeling good enough that he just smiled back and listened to Lorelei.

"The dream of the present isn't important as it has already come to pass," Lorelei went on. "The dream of the past was the most important, as I hoped it would allow Luke to figure out what was going on. But, sadly, he didn't remember it, either. Although," it said, a grin on its face as it looked at Jade, "I am surprised that you managed to figure out why Luke was dissipating even without any clues from me."

"I won't pretend it came to me easily," Jade admitted, shrugging. "I had it figured out once, back when we fought Shadow, but forgot due to an arte of that sentience's."

"What?" Anise exclaimed. "So what's happening to Luke?" she wondered.

"Wait and listen," Jade laughed. "You'll find out.

"...you just don't want to explain, again, Colonel. Boo."

"The dream of the past," Lorelei went on, "was of a meeting between myself and Yulia. This is how our shared history occurred..."

_Yulia smiled. Finally, after what felt like ages upon ages of work, it was done. Her finest creation: the Key of Lorelei. She had created it from two pieces of artifice she had put together, which she called the Sword and Jewel of Lorelei. Together, the two could combine to form the Key of Lorelei, which she could use to summon Lorelei, itself._

_It was the pinnacle of the age, she told herself. Fontech was evolving at a rapid pace, and this, the ability to harness the power of a sentience, might be the most important discovery of the century. Yulia had always been hailed as a prodigy for her skill with all the various fonon types, including the rare seventh fonon that few knew about. This, she knew, was to be her greatest work: something which could summon a sentience. The power from it, if the sentience would agree to a pact, would be astronomical. It would be wondrous for the world._

_She waited for a perfectly sunny day, went out to a beautiful field, and held the Key aloft. She had taken to calling it the Key of Lorelei because it was to be the tool which unlocked a new age of prosperity for mankind. She trembled at the thought of the good that could come of this. She raised the Key to the sky, and channeled her power through it._

_She summoned Lorelei._

"So what happened?" Anise asked.

"Something she had never planned on," Lorelei said sadly.

"_...Lorelei...?" Yulia blinked in confusion. After a brilliant figure of light descended to the ground, an old man appeared, leaning on a cane, grimacing in pain. "What's happening? Are you all right?"_

_"You... child..." Lorelei gasped. "What have you done?"_

_Yulia blanched in horror. "I... I meant only to summon you, to seek your help to better this world. What is wrong?"_

_Lorelei's eyes flashed darkly over the Key. "_That."

_"This?" Yulia blinked. "What's wrong with it?"_

"The Key is a mighty tool," Lorelei explained to the group, "but also similarly deadly."

"In what way?" Luke wondered.

"When Yulia summoned me with her Key, she destabilized my essence," Lorelei explained. "When I was summoned through the Key, for a split second, I existed within the Key, and was then taken out. But the Key is a massive source of seventh fonons, itself."

"I see," Jade hummed to himself. "So, you were, in effect, _split_ when you passed through the Key."

"That's not quite right, but it's about as accurate as you can say it," Lorelei said. "Summoning me through the Key caused my being to fracture in such a way that I could no longer exist without dissipating. My own being was fading, just like Luke's does. It would be, perhaps, like losing an interior organ in your own human body."

Luke whistled lowly. "Well, at least I'm not the only person who has to put up with it."

Lorelei chuckled. "This is true. At any rate, Yulia was greatly shocked and remorseful over what had happened. She decided to come up with a way to keep my fonons from scattering."

"Was that the Orb?" Guy wondered.

"That's correct," Lorelei smiled softly. "Ordinarily, a sentience's fonons scattering throughout the fon belt would not be problematic. They will eventually collect again and the sentience will awaken as though nothing had ever happened. But my own seventh fonons scattering is more dangerous."

Luke remembered back to something he had once learned on a ferry, when Van was first teaching him about the seventh fonon.

"_A hyperresonance is a power that occurs when two Seventh Fonons interact.__"_

Luke thought hard. "So when your fonons scatter around the fon belt, they cause random hyperresonances?" Lorelei nodded slowly, watching as the replica figured this out on his own. "So you needed some way to keep your fonons together. And when you were summoned with the Key, you lost that ability, and so Yulia had to make an artificial way for you to be able to do that: the Orb." Lorelei began to speak:

"_You have created it?"_

"_It is the end result of all my ability in fonon manipulation…and all my skill with fonic hymns," she said, offering it on a bended knee. "It will hold your fonons in by exerting a constant pull on them from within you." _

_"Are you sure about this?"_

_"What good will my Score be to the world if the seventh sentience destroys the fon belt from within?"_

_"It would only be the sentiences, not the fon belt."_

_"Either way, the consequences would be dire."_

_"Then I will accept this offering; this is a gift from you who created this from your proficiency with all seven fonons in a way that I could not, having ability in only one. This is the symbol that I shall always use to remember our agreement. By what words will you invoke our pact? By what words will your people remember our pact?"_

_"By these: _Toue Rei Zue Kuroa Ryuo Toue Zue_..."_

Tear blinked, lowering her head in remembrance. "That's where her hymns came from..."

"Yes," Lorelei said warmly. "I later improved the Orb so that it could change fonon particles at the fonic level to become seventh fonons. It's called third-order hyperresonance, but I wouldn't advice thinking too much about it when you're barely capable of the theory of second-order hyperresonance." Lorelei spoke with a faint smile at Jade. "Because of this ability, the other sentiences sometimes call the Orb the 'Bane of Existence,' because of what it could do to them, unchecked. When you absorbed it, Undine called _you_ the Bane of Existence," it said to Luke. "At any rate, the Orb was not only a way to save my own existence, but a symbol of the pact between I and Yulia, between I and those hymns."

"I see," Tear said, smiling widely.

"Okay, I get that," Luke said. "What next? Did you return to the fon belt?"

"I could not," Lorelei stated somewhat sadly. "You see, think of Auldrant and the fon belt as two separate objects, each with their own pull on a sentience. When the pull is equivalent, the sentience can travel back and forth at will, as long as there is a great enough concentration of its fonon type at its destination."

Jade hummed. "Are you saying that when you were summoned, the balance of seventh fonons was thrown askew?"

"Indeed," Lorelei said. "Yulia, summoning me through the key, drained the fon belt of all the seventh fonons that were there. This was not catastrophic because the seventh fonon has no opposition fonic type, so nothing in the fon belt was thrown out of balance."

"Besides," Luke figured, "if she had left seventh fonons, wouldn't they have been free to collide and cause a hyperresonance without you?"

"Yes," the sentience replied. "A very apt observation, child."

"So, then," Luke said, "you would have been forced to dwell in the only other major place of seventh fonon concentration on Auldrant."

Anise blinked, coming to her own realization. "The core! So that's how you got stuck down there!"

"It is as you have guessed, Fon Master," Lorelei smiled at the girl. "I dwelt there, making occasional contact with Yulia and helping her create the Score so that she could warn people of the Score of Final Judgment. And so," the sentience sighed, I was unable to return to the fon belt because there was an imbalance of seventh fonons. Even if I wanted to return, any attempt I made to leave would result in me being pulled back down to the core. Eventually, realizing the power that could be gained from having a mass of seventh fonons in the core, Yulia wanted to make use of it, with my permission, of course." Lorelei thought back fondly. "The Planet Storm, started by Southern-Cross, was already active. But with me fueling it as well..."

"_May we?" she asked quietly, looking reverently up at the sentience._

_"To provide power for the whole planet with my fonons?" Lorelei looked back, thinking. "It is a noble idea..."_

_"Please," Yulia begged, bowing her head politely. "To create a better world, I beg of you."_

_"This world of yours," Lorelei said. "I would be happy to see such a world of prosperity."_

"And so I helped Yulia improve the Planet Storm. Such an act condemned me to live in the core forever. Seventh fonons had been slowly returning to the fon belt, as fonons usually radiate from the world to there and vice versa, but once the Planet Storm grew more powerful, there would always be more within the core than there were in the fon belt," Lorelei explained. "Then, of course, the vibration from the increased power unknowingly caused the miasma to flow."

"_How could I have let this happen?!" Yulia cried, almost on the edge of tears. "They could all die... If we can't raise the land, and if that Tower of Rem doesn't work... we'll have nothing!"_

_"Child, calm yourself," Lorelei said. "You will succeed. Have faith. Though this is the end of an age, there is still potential for a new, better one."_

_"A sky covered by dark clouds is not a bright, happy age," Yulia said sadly. "That age that ended, the one of true prosperity... we shall forever call it the Dawn Age, for once the dawn ended and the day passes, the darkness rules again."_

"The beginning of the Planet Storm was the end of the Dawn Age," Lorelei said solemnly.

"But we stopped the Planet Storm," Luke said. "And we released you."

"There was enough time between when you stopped the Planet Storm and when I was freed from Van that seventh fonons could begin to gather again within the fon belt. As a result, I was able to return. I passed right by you as I went, Luke. And that was the problem," Lorelei said cryptically.

"What did I do?" Luke cried, alarmed.

"Nothing that was your fault," Lorelei said soothingly. "It was my own carelessness more than anything. When I passed by you, I made contact with the Key of Lorelei again. Just as it had once disrupted my being, this time it created an equal force of pressure on the Orb, keeping it from being bound to my body, so to speak. I lost it to you."

"Is the Key really such a high concentration of seventh fonons?" Luke wondered aloud. He looked at the sword reverently.

"It is. So much so," Lorelei said, and here Jade began to smile, for he could no longer help himself, "that... well, would you like to tell them?" it gestured to Jade.

Jade simply shrugged, though the grin didn't disappear. "I'm afraid I don't impart knowledge," he said, amused.

"Very well," Lorelei said. "Luke, you have been dissipating steadily since one particular moment."

_Luke closed his fist around the Orb, then took it and the Key of Lorelei and placed them on the dresser beside his shirt, dropping his item bag right beside it._

_Jade walked away with the Orb into another room… then a second room farther away, tracing the dissipation rate as he went._

_Luke laid his Key against the side of the dresser, then placed the Orb carefully atop the dresser as he dropped his shirt haphazardly on it. Then he walked back to his bed and flopped down._

Lorelei looked at him seriously. "Luke, you have been dissipating ever since you acquired the Key of Lorelei. The Key is such a massive concentration of seventh fonons that it draws on you more than you can draw on it. As such, whenever you are near the Key, you dissipate. When you distance yourself from it, you dissipate less."

Luke stared at him. His mouth started to open slightly. It was true that he started dissipating only after he tried to sacrifice himself atop the Tower of Rem... and he left the Tower of Rem with the Key of Lorelei in tow!

"So if I got rid of the Key..." Luke started to wonder out loud...

"I'd rather you didn't do that," Lorelei said. "That's not the kind of tool I'd like to have fall into the hands of just anyone."

Anise frowned. "But if it's killing him...!"

"Please calm yourself," Lorelei said soothingly. "It doesn't have to kill him," Lorelei said.

Jade sighed. "I suppose I will have to teach Luke after all. Such a bother, such a bother..."

Luke tilted his head. "Jade, what are you talking about?"

Jade remembered, what felt like ages ago, when he had said to Luke when they were in Guy's mansion.

"_In such a case, having such a concentration nearby should serve to keep the seventh fonons near Luke and hold him together."_

Such a concentration... the Key. But having it nearby wasn't enough, he knew now. Having it nearby was deteriorating Luke's body. The Key had to be _inside _him.

"Luke," Jade said. "I'm going to have to teach you the contamination effect."

"That's the thing you do with keeping your spear inside your arm, right?" Luke blinked.

"Oh, I see," Natalia said happily. "If the Key is inside Luke's body, then it will do the same thing that the Orb does for Lorelei! It is our original plan, but we're merely replacing the Orb for the Key."

"That way, both Lorelei and Luke are saved..." Anise said. "That's great!"

"There's still one thing I want to know," Luke mused.

"What, child?" Lorelei asked.

_The sword went right through Luke's body. Luke coughed up blood as the sticky crimson liquid began running down his chest. The sword had missed his heart high, but only barely._

"How am I still alive?!" he asked incredulously.

Lorelei laughed. "If you did not have the Orb, which was already producing healing seventh fonons, within you when you were hit, you likely would have died. As it ended up, even when you were stabbed, you were being healed, a fact which only just saved your life."

"When you arrived, Lorelei, I suppose you healed him as soon as you materialized?" Tear wondered.

"But of course," the sentience replied. "For one such as he who saved my own life, it seemed only fitting to return the favour.

"So what happens now?" Anise asked. "We ruined the balance of fonons in the world. Don't we have to correct that?"

"Actually, you didn't ruin the balance at all," Lorelei smiled. "You absorbed an equal amount of all six fonon types. That means the balance is back to normal, though the overall volume is reduced by a little."

Luke leaned back against the ground in relief. "Does that mean the other sentiences will all be all right?"

Lorelei nodded assent. "Though they might not be able to appear on Auldrant with as much frequency, they'll certainly all be perfectly fine. You only absorbed enough fonons to allow a sentience to appear six times, or one time for each type. But the overall number of fonons in the world is exponentially larger than that, so the world will be fine, as well."

"So it's really... over," Luke laughed, gripping the hilt of his Key happily. "Everything's back to the way it's supposed to be, right?"

Lorelei laughed loudly. "If there's one thing you should have learned from all this, Luke, it's that there is nothing in this world that is _supposed to be_. Events just _are_, situations just _are._ It is up to you to correct and change the world when it goes off track. And, when everything finally looks right, if you want to accept that as your own personal view of how it is supposed to be," Lorelei smiled as it began to rise up to the fon belt, "I suppose that really is how it is _supposed to be._"

They watched as Lorelei disappeared in a flash of light. Luke put his arm around Tear, then looked at Jade and smiled. "So, the contamination effect, huh? Doesn't sound too hard."

* * *

_epilogue to follow_


	18. Epilogue, Author's Notes

_One Year Later_

"You know, Colonel," Anise said cutely as she strolled alongside the man in question, "for hating teaching, you really are good at it."

"I'm good at many things, Anise," he said with his usual joking tone of voice. "But what brings this talent to mind, now?"

"Luke," she replied, a calm flick of her head as she looked up at him. Time had rewarded Anise, for looking up to Jade no longer meant craning her neck into an almost uncomfortable bend, but rather just tilting her head smoothly. While she never did grow as big as Tear (take that in any way you wish), she did get the alluring figure she wanted, and enough height to make everyone stop cracking kid jokes about her.

Jade hadn't changed at all, of course. He was a little wiser and a little stronger—arguably in the prime of his career—but still as sarcastic as ever. "Teaching Luke is a little different than teaching most pupils would be," he admitted. "Whenever Luke did something wrong, I was allowed to hit him."

Anise giggled. "And did it work?"

"Splendidly."

They walked up the last few steps to Baticul Castle. The girl (woman?) smiled as she looked up at the towering structure, remembering their former adventures with a warm feeling. Their whole group still kept in touch, but she was happiest that Jade managed to stay closest of all. In order to keep good faith between Daath, Malkuth and Kimlasca, the three powers had decided that emissaries of goodwill should be stationed in Daath, one each from the two kingdoms, in order to maintain positive relations in a manner that was both direct and through another neutral channel. Of course, the two men had to be stationed in Daath and live there. The choice about who to name emissary for Malkuth was, for Peony, a no-brainer.

"I've forgotten," Anise said suddenly raising a single finger, gloved in white, up to her lips in thought. "Are you acting as an old friend to the princess or as the emissary of Malkuth, tonight?"

"Technically as an old friend, if I had to choose an option," Jade replied, his tone denying bonds with anyone as he so often did. "However, when one serves as an ambassador for his country, one must always appear under the impression that one is currently acting the role of the ambassador." His formal dress was a slightly varied form of his normal attire. The blue overcoat was longer, the fabric smoother. There was a place for military medals along the lapel (of which he pinned none because he found the attention they drew to be a nuisance). The neck of the outfit was more exposed, leaving a place for a tie to be seen. He had selected a dark blue one, which rested against a black shirt he wore under the coat. His pants and shoes were also different, being completely black as opposed to his normal blue. The shoes, particularly, had been shined expertly, making him look more than presentable. The gloves, of course, were the same, and there were pockets for his hands (it would not have been _Jade _for him to own clothing without pockets).

Anise, having long since outgrown her old clothes, was dressed in a more formal outfit. It was vaguely reminiscent of Ion's Fon Master robes, but folded differently and wore slightly tighter around her waist and torso, as though to remind the world that she was a female Fon Master and proud of it. Of course, the robe was also faintly pink along certain lines and trims, because, as Anise would say, "Anything worth wearing is worth owning in pink." Her gloves, though, were pure white and extended to her elbows. The biggest change was, perhaps, her hair, which she had taken out of its usual pigtail style and allowed to rest loosely around her neck and shoulders. It had originally been longer than her shoulders, but she had cut it back a little, claiming that a Fon Master shouldn't walk around sporting a child's haircut. She was right, though; she looked much older without the pigtails. In fact, the only element of her attire that played counteractive to her more grown-up look was the doll that clung to her shoulders, dangling on her back, grinning. Anise smiled as she mulled over Jade's ambassador comment. "Even for one night, you're ever the soldier, Colonel," she said with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

"Perhaps so," he admitted, chuckling. The guards didn't stop them as they entered, instead bowing curtly as they passed through the large front door. Jade took a moment to again familiarize himself with the interior, while Anise skipped ahead happily into the centre of the grand hall.

She waved back to him. "Come on! Natalia's letter said she was having the throne room converted into a dining room for tonight."

Jade sighed with a slightly exasperated smirk on his face. "Does she really believe we will require the entire hall just for the six of us?"

"Well, you know royalty," Anise replied, the sly grin on her face as she leaned slightly forward. "Everything must be overdone."

"I suppose so," Jade answered, walking toward the steps that led to the throne room with his hands placed in his pockets comfortably.

Anise groaned. "Oh, Colonel, we're supposed to look regal and presentable and fancy when going into a special dinner like this. Do you always have to have your hands in your pockets?"

"My gloves are dirty," he replied teasingly. "I didn't want to embarrass you by revealing their stain-covered filth to the worth."

"You're joking," she said quickly.

"Saying it faster won't make it any less true," he came back.

She _knew _he was joking. She had seen his gloves and couldn't remember seeing dirt on them. But she couldn't remember for certain! Though, really, it was just the kind of thing that he would tease her about. But what if he _wasn't _teasing? Her grand entrance could be _ruined_ if her accompaniment wasn't clean to perfection! But, no, he _must _be joking. What to do, what to do? He had an uncanny ability to find the one thing that would worry her at any given time and exploit it.

"Colonel!" she whined, causing the man to again chuckle.

"Well, I suppose you'll find out sooner or later," he said, walking up the steps to the throne room-turned-dining room. "Oh, and please don't look so fretted about it. I'd hate for my entrance to be spoiled by a fidgeting teenager."

"_Your _entrance?"

They reached the top of the stairs, finding the doors to be opened wide for them. A large, long table was set up in the dining room. It looked like it could have seated ten, if necessary. There were only six places set up at the table. Anise and Jade took two seats across from each other on the right side and waited.

* * *

"Natalia!" Guy called up the stairs to Natalia's bedroom. "Have you seen my formal suit?" The Hodsman had taken up residence in Castle Baticul again, and Natalia had this time made certain he was afforded better quarters than the small room he had shared with Pere for years. It wasn't a difficult adjustment to make. He already knew where everything was, except, apparently, for his suit.

A groan floated down the staircase. "Guy, you've had that suit for years. If you wear it again, you're going to put a hole in the seat of the pants. The colours are all faded in it! It is hardly a wearable suit, any longer."

"Did you _throw out_ my formal suit?"

"No," she shouted back, "I had it sent to the tailor's to get it fixed."

He blanched. It was starting to get in _slightly_ bad condition, it's true, but he didn't think it had gotten that noticeable. "So what am I supposed to wear?" he asked. He looked over himself, still wearing his traveling clothes, orange vest and all.

"Honestly," Natalia said with a shake of her head as she appeared at the top of the stairs. She was wearing a long, pale green dress similar in colour to many of the clothes she wore on their journeys. It went down to her ankles, forcing her to daintily pull the hemline up as she descended the steps. The dress had no sleeves, the garment instead clinging to her shoulders with no fabric on her arms. The neckline was not outrageously low (she would not be called a Star tonight), but it was definitely one of Natalia's dresses. "It takes me long enough to dress myself for an occasion like this, must I really dress you, as well?" She reached the bottom stair, leveling out their natural height difference so she could look him in the eye easily. He hadn't answered. "...Guy?"

He looked lost for a moment, eyes starting to glaze over. Then he gave his head a quick shake, snapping himself back into the present. "Oh! Sorry, Natalia. I..."

"You are _such _a _guy,_" she teased him, giving him a gentle slap across the arm.

He sheepishly replied, "I think you would have been more offended if I hadn't reacted at all." He cleared his throat as she smiled, stepping down the last step. "You look very beautiful, tonight."

She lifted an eyebrow, blushing furiously but with a slight smile on her face. "Only tonight?"

"Hey, come on!" he cried. "Don't put me in situations like that. You know what I mean!"

She moved closer quickly and hugged him tightly, saying, "Yes, I do." He kissed the top of her head, very quickly, while she was nuzzled into him. When he had let her go, she asked, "So, what are we going to find for you to wear...?"

"You mean you got rid of my formal suit without thinking of a replacement?" he asked incredulously.

"_Really, _Guy," she answered, lost in thought, "your suit was so worn, it wasn't even useful, anymore."

"Natalia, a suit is only useful when it's worn," he answered quickly.

"Let us not quibble over the minor details," she said, glaring at him to stop any more clever replies. "How long will it take you to get ready?"

"Get ready with what?" he sighed. "I don't even have something to change into, yet."

"Well," she said slowly, thinking. "We do have some suits that Peony—"

"_No._"

"Oh, _fine_," she huffed, but she made it clear that she wasn't really angry. "There are some extra suits in the third bedroom down this hall, I believe." She pointed so he knew where to go.

"These extra suits had nothing to do with Peony, right?" he asked warily.

"Nothing at _all,_" she assured him. "Now please go change quickly. I want to get there before our guests arrive." Guy walked down the hallway, entered the room and locked the door. He came out wearing a suit with orange pins on the cuffs five minutes later. He was wearing a dark orange tie against a black shirt. The pants were also black, but the jacket, itself was white. The shoes were black to match the pants, leaving him with a very professional look. Natalia sighed, a hand on her head as she shook it slowly.

"What's wrong?" Guy asked, a little concerned.

"It takes me at least four hours to get ready for something like this, and you can make preparations in five minutes," she pointed out, latching onto his arm and walking in step with him.

"Yeah, but you get what you pay for," he said wisely. "I don't look half as nice as you do." He swore he could feel the heat from her blush on his arm.

A guard bowed to them as they entered the main hall. "Two of your guests have already arrived, Your Highness," he said diligently.

"Already?" she gasped, a hand raised to her mouth. "Oh, my..."

Guy smiled. "It's all right, they won't mind." They started walking up the steps. "Any bets on who it will be?"

"Knowing Luke," she said thoughtfully, "I would assume Jade and Anise."

"You're probably right," Guy said, chuckling, "but I'll take Luke and Tear, just to make it sporting."

"Do we know they're coming together?" Natalia asked.

"I would be astonished if they weren't," Guy smiled back at her.

* * *

"Honestly, Luke, you're going to kill yourself one of these days," Tear said, holding her head in a single hand.

"Relax!" he said. "I've almost... got... it...!" He was stretched over one of Baticul's bridges, leaning so far over the edge that Tear was starting to worry he would overbalance and teeter off the edge.

Tear stood in the middle of the bridge, wearing a rather ornately designed silk dress. It was very unlike her to get so dressed up, but she supposed that, just this once for a particularly nice occasion, it wouldn't kill her to stop being a soldier for one night and dress truly _girly._ The dress was dark, as she couldn't bring herself to abandon her usual colours. The dress was strapless, however, and so to protect her own extreme modesty, she had purchased a silk shawl of the same colour to wear.

Then the wind took it.

So Luke was now leaning dangerously over a bridge, reaching out to a support cable with an outstretched arm, trying to grab her shawl which the wind had carried to that same cable. It was remaining just out of his reach. Luke snapped as he got an idea. With a sudden flash of light that hovered between gold and white, the Key of Lorelei appeared in his hand. He positioned it carefully under the shawl, then lifted the article of clothing off the support cable and back to the bridge. He took it quickly off the Key, returned the weapon to his arm with another golden-white flash of light, and handed Tear her shawl back.

"Thank you," Tear said warmly, wrapping it around her shoulders, this time with more care to make sure it wouldn't be taken away on the wind.

"Don't mention it," Luke smiled back. She took his hand and the two walked together toward the castle.

"Do you think we're going to be late?" Tear wondered with an eye to the sky. "The sun is starting to look low. It's almost evening."

"Ah, don't worry about it," Luke replied calmly. "They wouldn't start without us, anyway."

"If they're worried that you'll eat most of the food, yes, they will," Tear teased him, poking his stomach gently.

"Don't say things like that!" he whined. "That's too scary to even think about." He adjusted his cuff, as it was starting to bother him, while they stepped onto the lift that led to the castle.

Luke was wearing a modification of an outfit he had received from a man in the Colosseum one day. It was a long overcoat, but he had this one made up in white, instead of the red one he had received. He also had the collar reduced in the front so people could see his face, though he left it high in the back. The slacks that he wore with it were also white, and he had the logo from the back of his regular outfit sewn into the back of this one, as well. He didn't carry a sheath, anymore (well, he did, but he called it his _arm_), which left the outfit with a simplistic, though very noble, look.

Luke smiled as they walked into the castle. While he still lived here, he was making a second home of sorts in Yulia City with Tear. He was starting to enjoy helping her with her work (she traveled a lot, and he hated to be stuck in one place for too long) for the Order, and more often than not, she was sent to Daath, which let them catch up with Anise and Jade frequently. Stepping back into the castle square was like coming home _and _being on vacation at the same time. It was a strange feeling.

"We're almost there," Tear said, smiling. "Ready?"

"Almost," Luke replied. "Just a minute." He walked over to the water fountain in the centre of the square, stopping on the bridge that crossed over it. He drew a single gald out of his pocket and threw it into the water. Waiting for a moment, he smiled.

"Did you make a wish?" Tear asked. He nodded. "What did you wish for?"

He shrugged coyly. "I can't tell you. It won't come true, then, will it?"

She laughed. "Fair enough. But," she asked, taking his arm and looking up at him, "Did it come true?"

He turned slightly, drew her near, and gave her a long, loving kiss. When they parted, he whispered, "Yes."

* * *

**_Author's Notes_:**

_Unbelievable. You know, when I started this fic, I was aiming for about five chapters. Sometimes stories have a life of their own, and we, as writers, can only express what our characters want to do. That's what happened in this case. For _Phasis_, the characters wanted to do their own thing, and I just obeyed. So, a few things to say (I'll try and keep this brief, but I'm concerned these notes are going to rival some _chapters _in length._

_First, I'd like to address any leftover questions in the reviews. I like to respond to reviews in-chapter, and I used to do so, but the admins of the site have said that's a no-no, and all I can do is sit and obey (sigh). So, just a couple things that I feel need clearing up from the reviews._

_On the issue of moves like Center and Guardian Field: Yes, it's true that Luke and Guy have their own healing artes, and didn't necessarily have to wait for Tear or Natalia to heal them at every instance. Moreover, did you know that with Grass Chambers equipped to the right move, any character except Jade can heal themselves with their stat-boosting artes? The reason I didn't use them, though, is that those artes make characters broken, to borrow a term (ie., they become too strong within the confines of the canon, "breaking" the rules of the canon). Imagine the scene where Guy shielded Natalia from Rem, gets stabbed and hits the ground. There would have been no drama at all if he had just used Center right away. By limiting the character's ability to heal themselves, a writer can increase the drama and suspense in their work._

_On the issue of where the sentience's names came from: Efreet, Rem, Shadow, Sylph, Gnome and Undine are not randomly chosen names or picked at random from ToS, but are continual elements in Tales lore overall. They (in addition to Celcius and Volt) appear in multiple games, including Tales of Eternia and, I believe, Tales of Phantasia, as well. So, when deciding upon names, that was the pool I had to work from. The decision for Undine/Celcius and Sylph/Volt came down to just looking around in-game and seeing where names were referenced. The game's own canon supports that Undine and Sylph are the names of the water and wind sentiences._

_The ending, about the Orb and the Key, was being hinted at throughout the whole story. I'm sure I missed some lines I could have used when I was revealing the secret in chapter 17. One of my favourite tricks was referencing the Key by name. If you go back and skim, you'll find that no weapon, other than the Key of Lorelei, is referenced by its name. That was one of the small clues that was my own personal favourite which I don't think anyone picked up on._

_To share credit, many of the ideas touched upon in the sentience battles have their roots elsewhere, and many of them are more interesting than I managed to convey them. For instance, Mary's speech to Guy about humans naming things to make sense of them can be seen in a few other places. See Margaret Atwood's poem "Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer" as a starting point if you're interested. As well, Van's speech to Tear about what the mind can think of with its body gone and in a void alludes to Michel Foucault and some of his ideas about the body and the mind. There's more in, I believe, his text, _The Order of Things_, but don't hold me to that. I could say more about the ideas used, but I don't want to go on about it forever. These notes are getting long as it is._

_I'd like to send out a few final thank yous before I wrap up this story once and for all. These groups and people have been instrumental in the continuing life and success of this story, and I am very grateful that they were here._

_First, to you who reviewed. Rest assured that, though I could not place notes in each chapter as I'd like to, I did read and appreciate each review you people sent my way. Many of your ideas and hopes actually influenced the story in minor details in places (I'll let you try and figure out where!). Though I would never have stopped the story altogether (I was very determined to finish this one), the support from the ToA online community was key in rolling out these chapters at a fast clip, and I'll thank you for that._

_Second, to the ToAIM group. I don't know if I could have kept my passion for the game up at the necessary level it had to be at in order to write this if it weren't for all of you, injecting my very being, as it were, with a constant influx of Tales essence. Talking with all of you has been not only a joy on numerous occasions, but a highlight of my night and something I look forward to. I am very glad to have met you! Thank you for your support and for putting up with me when I plug my own rather dismal work whenever I have something to show off._

_No writer is able to just write flawlessly, and to claim that I've written this on a solo effort would be horribly myopic of me. I was blessed—and this is a carefully chosen word, but I believe it aptly fits—blessed with two of the finest betaers known to fanfiction, and it was only though their attention to detail that _Phasis _ended up being what it is (some of you may think I'm being humble; trust me when I say that the story would be a lot shorter and significantly lower quality without them). So, I go on:_

_Third, to Vil. How could I not thank you with all you did? I don't want to say you were a substitute beta, because I listened to your advice just as carefully as I did my regular; and not only did you poke at me before chapters when I showed you things, but also with dedicated (and usually _first_) reviews after chapters! Your help and dedication is not only appreciated, but warmly returned whenever you want it. Thank you for hearing out silly ideas and not berating me too much when you had to sit though them!_

_Lastly, to Griff. To say _Phasis _would be nothing without you would be an understatement. When I started this fic, I didn't want you to beta because the fic was really for you, and it didn't seem fair to make you work for it, nor did I want to ruin surprises for you by discussing things early. I wonder what happened to my stubbornness? At any rate, I'm glad you betaed for me. The amount of work you put into this piece rivals my own (I may be exaggerating, but only slightly). It's plainly obvious that you had intentions from the start of pushing me to make this fic be better than I was hoping it would be, and I'm glad you did. Thank you for everything. Even on the days we didn't agree on every detail, I'm glad I had you helping me._

_I think that about wraps it up! Thank you to everyone for your continued support. I have no plans for a sequel; I wrote _Phasis _intending to serve as a fourth part of the original Tales of the Abyss (think of that black title card screen with the date appearing and rolling into another part of the game), and I think it's done that admirably (not necessarily _well, _but admirably!). Thank you again! After all this, I believe there's only one thing left to say._

_To Griff:_

Merry Christmas.

* * *

_**end **_**Phasis**


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